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APEIMER OF COOKING

APRIMER OF COOKING

BY

DOROTHY M. HAMILTON

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NEW YORKTHE CENTURY CO.

1921

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Copyright, 1921, by

The Century Co.

OCT 25 1921

Printed in U. S. A.

g)Cl.A627371

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I INTRODUCTION

We hear much of drudgery, but any sort of work that is

slighted becomes drudgery. —William Dean Howells.

It is hard for the beginner at cooking to dig

out for herself answers to all the questions

which are constantly puzzling her. And ex-

perienced cooks, either from impatience at the

absurdity of the questions or from inability to

be scientifically accurate, often fail of being

helpful. The result is that the beginner must

learn by experience alone, laboriously and

extravagantly wasting material. This cook-

book aims to meet the beginner as it were in a

laboratory: to start her in various minor ex-

periments; to suggest more complicated ones

without insisting upon them. In no case does

it try to hurry past the elementary steps.

In attempting to be specific the author faced

the impossibility of making the book all-

embracing. But to cover all kinds of living andmarket conditions would be to prevent the book

from being a primer and turn it into a treatise.

vi INTEODUCTION

It will be easy for the reader to make individual

adjustments. For example, the point of view

presupposes a city community, and all refer-

ences to stoves imply gas stoves; but the same

results may be had with a coal stove or an

alcohol stove with an attachable oven.

Only simple recipes are included, because the

nature of the book demands this. And there

is another reason: the stress of the times de-

mands it. In small families where there is no

servant and where efforts are being made

toward economy, there is no logical demand for

elaborate meals. There is instead the tendency

to stress the possibilities of simple ones.

CONTENTSPAGE

Introduction v

IN AND OUT OF THE KITCHEN 3

I The Meal Scheme 6

II Easy Ways Around the Kitchen ... 8

III Kitchen Utensils and Accessories ... 11

IV Serving Refreshments 14

BREAKFAST 19

I Beverages 22

II Eggs 24

III Breakfast Meats 28

IV Hot Cakes 31

V Hot Breads 34

VI Marmalade 39

VII Cereals . 41

LUNCH 45

I HoRS d'OEuvres 47

II The Main Lunch Dish 49

vii

CONTENTSPAGE

III Desserts for Lunch 59

IV Cake 62

DINNER 75

I Soup 78

II Meats , . . . . 86

III Sauces 103

IV Fish . Ill

V Poultry 121

VI Potatoes, Rice, and Macaroni 133

VII Green Vegetables 142

VIII Salads 150

IX Desserts 161

Index 175

VIU

IN AND OUT OF THE KITCHEN

APRIMER OF COOKING

IN AND OUT OF THE KITCHEN

You must set your own housekeeping stand-

ard. It will depend upon the amount of your

income, the quality of your leisure, and your

tastes. It may demand all of your time or very

little; you may insist that your house be in a

state of perfection, from the point of view of

cleanliness, or you may be contented to have it

merely comfortable and habitable.

But this is important: Having once deter-

mined your individual standard, never depart

from it!

If it is to your satisfaction to dust the living-

room only once in two days ; if you like to use

that room as a reading-room, with a few books

laid here and there on the reading-table and a

cushion stuffed against the back of the easiest

chair for comfort, be sure not to change it fur-

3

A PEIMER OF COOKING

tively for a chance caller. You are living not

according to the caller's standard, but accord-

ing to your own.

i This is particularly applicable to your table

service and the planning of meals. Presumably

you have, every day, the most nourishing and

daintily served meals which you are capable

of preparing. It is taken for granted that you

try to have every dinner well balanced and

appetizing, though not elaborate. You knowhow much you can afford to spend for food, and

you manipulate the amount so that you can buy

the best food materials,—good meats, first-class

canned goods, fresh fruit, and guaranteed dairy

products. If meat is expensive you round out

dinner with more cheese than usual, or with a

milk-and-egg dessert. You have, at any rate,

a definite course of action which you follow

habitually.

Could anything be more unreasonable than

the sudden switching from this course, at the

appearance of company for dinner—the im-

pulse to have a more elaborate and expensive

dinner? A dinner more elaborate and expen-

sive than the kind you are accustomed to have

is a discourtesy to your guest, because it is an

4

IN AND OUT OF THE KITCHEN

insincerity ; it is a pretense that your standard

of living is higher than it really is. And in-

variably the guest feels it.

If your breakfasts, lunches, and dinners are

entirely suitable to you and your family, they

will be just the thing to serve to your guests.

5

I

THE MEAL SCHEME

You will find it hard to improve upon the

French theory of meals which recognizes as a

serious consideration only one meal of the

three. The French have coffee or chocolate and

rolls for breakfast, combinations of appetizing

trifles for lunch, and at night, when they are

hungry and unhurried, they have a very sub-

stantial dinner.

This plan is good for the digestion, because

it gives the body rest before each big meal. It

is economical, because it concentrates expense

upon dinner alone,—presupposing that lunch

may be built on dinner left-overs. And, if

thoughtfully worked out, it is the most time-

saving plan possible for the housekeeper. The

meat for dinner, and the potatoes with it, maybe cooked in the morning. If the meat is to

be baked, a baked dessert may be mixed up and

put in the oven at the same time. If a sauce is

6

THE MEAL SCHEME

to be served with the dessert, it may be madethen, and set away to be served cold at dinner-

time. Soup, if it is the canned kind, may be

heated up at night, when the second vegetable

is warmed in its sauce, and a salad mixed. If

the soup is home-made it will have been got

ready the day before.

The preparation of lunch and breakfast

should not take more than fifteen minutes each.

So there would be, under this arrangement, a

whole afternoon and at least half of a morn-

ing, every day, free from cooking.

nEASY WAYS AROUND THE KITCHEN

You will find out through experience that the

only way to hurry in the kitchen is to be neat.

Not excessively neat; just neat enough to pick

up after yourself ; to keep things ship-shape.

For instance, after beating an egg hold the

egg-beater under cold water immediately, then

under hot water,—it will take only a second,

—

dry it, and put it in its drawer. When you take

a little corn-starch from the box or a pinch of

spice from the spice-sifter, put the box and the

sifter back in their places automatically Set

the butter back in the ice-box as soon as you

have taken out enough for your purpose. Whenyou have finished mixing up a cake put the mix-

ing-bowl, the spoon, and the measuring-cup un-

der cold water, then wash them under the hot

water faucet and dry them or set them in the

dish-drainer to dry. When you empty a sauce-

pan or a frying-pan put it in the sink and fill it

8

EASY WAYS ABOUND THE KITCHENwith cold water. You will find it much easier

to wash, later on, than if you had left it dry.

Washing your pots and pans thoroughly is

practical. For if you put them away only slop-

pily washed you will have to rinse them out

before you can use them again. Pie pans care-

lessly dried will rust. A bread-board put awaywith bits of flour sticking to it will be too uneven

to roll pie dough on, the next time you need it.

If you look ahead, in managing kitchen af-

fairs, you will find yourself inventing all sorts

of schemes to save time without sacrificing

neatness.

You will spread a piece of newspaper downon your kitchen table when you are going to

crack nuts or cut cabbage or pare potatoes or

cut steak or mix up a cake. Then this paper

may be gathered up with the scraps in a heap,

and thrown into the garbage can,—a shorter op-

eration than clearing off the table and wiping

it with a cloth.

You will save dish-washing by beating eggs

in the same bowl in which they are to be baked,

if it is a souffle you are making, or a salmon

loaf. But you must grease the bowl before you

put the eggs in it.

9

A PEIMER OF COOKING

You will put food away, as often as possible,

in a receptacle that can go either on top of the

stove or in the oven, so that you will not have

to soil another dish to reheat it.

This is not laziness, but scientific planning.

Nor is it laziness to drain your dishes instead

of drying them. If each dish is washed with

soapy water, rinsed, then set in a draining-

rack, with boiling water finally poured over the

whole rack, the moisture will dry by evapora-

tion in a few minutes, leaving the dish really

cleaner and shinier than if it had been moppedover with a half-damp tea towel. Glassware

and knives and forks and spoons must be dried.

If they are left to drain, the glasses will look

cloudy and the silverware will tarnish.

Have a place for every cooking-utensil.

Putting an article in its place will not take a

minute. And finding it there when you want

it in a hurry is a great satisfaction.

10

mKITCHEN UTENSILS AND ACCESSORIES

Your capacity for ease and quickness in cook-

ing will depend in large measure upon your

kitchen utensils. Saucepans that are too big

or that are made of scratchy ware, or cheap

saucepans whose handles come off; a dull par-

ing-knife ; a mixing-bowl that is too small for

cake batter,—all these will hinder you more

than you realize.

It is very easy to buy too many pans and to

buy them of the wrong material. Enameled

ware is pretty to look at. But it is hard to

take care of, because every time you scratch

it with a spoon or a knife the mark stays. Andif it gets burned on the bottom the enamel wiU

peel off, and make the pan useless.

For general ware,—for your coffee-pot, tea-

kettle, double boiler, soup kettle, and most of

your saucepans,—aluminum is more satisfac-

tory. It is heavy enough to protect the food

in it from burning easily, and solid enough to

11

A PEIMER OF COOKING

hold the heat. It is easily kept clean with steel

wool which can be bought at the five-and-ten-

cent store.

You will need at least one heavy iron frying-

pan. The auxiliary ones may be of thin steel

or aluminum. The heavy one is to be used for

steaks and chops,—to keep the surface of the

meat from browning or burning before the meat

is heated through.

You will find that an oval dish-pan is more

convenient than a round one. It will accommo-

date platters, the largest frying-pan, and even

the meat-roaster.

Pay enough for your kitchen knives and forks

and spoons to insure their being sharp and

durable. Get knives whose blades run to the

very end of the handles. Wash the wooden-

bladed cutlery separately from the other ware.

Never put the handles in water.

The following is a virtually complete list of

necessary utensils and accessories. You can

add to it any number of luxuries,—a pastry-

tube, a vegetable scoop, a machine for slicing

potatoes in corrugated shape, etc.,—^but there

is no item on this list which you can afford to

do without.

12

UTENSILS AND ACCESSORIES

FOR GENEKAI. COOKING

Soapstone griddle

Iron frying-panTwo thinner frying-pansMeat-roaster with lid

Two small aluminum sauce-pans

Soup kettle with lid

Double boiler or steam cookerTea-kettleCoffee-potTea-pot"Wire strainerAluminum colanderOne small saucepan holdinga cupful

One covered casserole

Six individual casseroles

One shallow baking-panOne casserole with roundedbottom

One earthenware pitcherMeat-grinderDover egg-beaterLemon-squeezer

Can-openerApple-corerPotato-masherLettuce bagBread-boxCake-boxCoffee-strainer

Sieve spoonSpatulaSharp paring-knifeTwo or three broad-bladed

knivesBread-knifeNarrow-bladed, long meat-

knife

Three tablespoonfulsTwo wooden-handled forksWooden spoonWooden forkTwo soft napkins for drying

lettucePair of scissors

Ice-pick

FOB BAKING

Bread-boardRolling-pinOne large mixing-bowlOne small mixing-bowlHalf-pint flour-sifter

Glass half-pint measuring cupBiscuit-cutter

Cookie-cuttersMuffin panTwo pie pansOne large loaf panOne small loaf panTwo patent cake pansTube cake pan

FOR DISH-WASHING

Dish-panDish draining-rackDish-mopSix tea towelsSoap-shaker

Soap-rackSink garbage canSmall brush and dust-pan for

sink

13

IV

SERVING REFRESHMENTS

The spirit of refreshment-serving is excel-

lent. There is an atmosphere of pleasant ease,

of conviviality, and of confidence supplied by

the act of eating in company.

Refreshments are important enough to be

considered thoughtfully by the housekeeper as

a combination of privilege-duty. She can serve

them so intelligently that they will be no real

trouble to her,—rather a pleasure.

Consider, in serving refreshments, that the

comfort of the guests is the important thing.

In the middle of the afternoon or late after-

noon, they will not want anything to take their

appetite from dinner. Toward the end of the

evening they will not want a heavy food, to

add to an already sufficient dinner and perhaps

to spoil their night's rest. So it will be best to

avoid very sweet refreshments, such as layer-

cake with thick icing, ice-cream, substantial

14

SERVING REFRESHMENTS

fruit salad, and candy; or insistently heavy

ones, such as Welsh rabbit or creamed oysters

in patty shells.

Always make your refreshments unobtrusive.

In the afternoon serve tea, hot or iced, ac-

cording to the season, with lemon, sugar, cream,

and some kind of sweetened cookies, or with

thin slices of bread and butter, or with cinna-

mon toast,—made by covering hot toast with

butter, then sprinkling it with granulated sugar

mixed with cinnamon.

Or, on a cold winter's day you might serve

a cup of hot bouillon, for variety, with salted

crackers and an olive on each saucer.

Coffee is rather heavy for afternoon.

So is cocoa. But if you use small cups and

serve saltines or some other unsweetened

crackers with it, it will be very much more to

the liking of some guests than tea.

In the evening coffee and sandwiches are the

only sensible form of refreshment. The coffee

should be served in large cups, with whipped

cream if possible, and the sandwiches should be

dainty ones, of several different kinds.

Use tea napkins and let the guests sit at a

table if you can arrange it, so that they can eat

15

A PRIMER OF COOKING

and drink comfortably. If tlie table is imprac-

ticable, be sure to have a tea plate under each

person *s cup instead of a small saucer. Then

there will be room on the plate for a sandwich.

16

BBEAKFAST

BREAKFAST

It has to be cooked fast, in most homes, and

eaten fast, too. And if the housekeeper has

other things than cooking to spend time on, she

will want to clear the table and wash the dishes

fast.

So why not use individual trays to serve it

on?

These had better be wooden or lacquer rather

than glass, so that a coffee-pot may be set on

one of them. Have as many trays as there are

members of the family. Before starting break-

fast lay the trays out in a row on the kitchen

table, cover each one with a paper napkin,

and put on it the necessary dishes and silver-

ware. When breakfast is ready ladle out each

person's share, leaving the hot drink to be

poured when everybody is ready to eat, and

cover each hot dish with a deep saucer. Thenthe trays may be carried into any room in the

house which is adaptable for a breakfast-room.

19

A PRIMER OF COOKING

A low card-table set in front of a fire in the

living-room may be pleasant. Then, when

breakfast is over, the trays may be carried back

to the kitchen in a few trips, and cleared

methodically. There will be no table to crumb,

nor table-cloth nor mats to remove.

Breakfast is not a lukewarm meal. Its func-

tion is to stir the appetite, and to satisfy a hun-

ger that perhaps does not consciously exist.

There are two secrets to a good breakfast;

they are,—hot and cold. Have the hot drink,

the cooked cereal (if one is used), the bacon and

eggs, the buckwheat cakes, very hot. And have

the fruit and the cream very cold. Keep the

hot things hot with dish-covers, and get the cold

things cold by leaving them in the ice-box over-

night.

Although the coffee or chocolate and rolls

breakfast is an ideal working basis—comply-

ing with the theory that breakfast should be

as light as possible—it will not do, literally,

for the men of the family, nor for the womenwho go out to work. In contrast to it, however,

is the heavy breakfast of oatmeal, chops and

fried potatoes, hot bread and coffee. This sort

of breakfast is not only an unfair burden on

20

BREAKFAST

the housekeeper, making her get a full meal

the first thing in the morning, but it is too

much for the digestion of the person who eats

it. It makes him stupid all day.

As a compromise, breakfast might include a

fruit course ; either a substantial cereal course

or a light hot course of eggs, ham, wheat-cakes,

fish or bacon ; and coffee, with rolls or toast.

21

I

BEVERAGES

COFFEE

Have the coffee ground of medium fineness,

and as soon as it comes from the store empty it

from the paper or cardboard container into air-

tight glass jars.

To make coffee, put in the pot a heaping

tablespoonful for each person to be served.

Follow this with as many cups of cold water

—

using a standard half-pint measuring-cup or

glass—and an egg-shell crushed up, for the pur-

pose of clearing the liquid. Put this on over

a brisk fire. When it has come to a boil, turn

the flame down low and simmer the coffee for

at least five minutes. The whole operation for

five or six portions of coffee will take about

twenty minutes.

TEA

Tea-ball tea is simple. Heat the water to

22

BEVERAGES

the boiling-point, and pour it over a tea-ball,

half-filled with tea, in each cup separately.

To steep tea, put in a tea-pot—^which has been

rinsed out with boiling water—^half a teaspoon-

ful of tea for each person. Pour about a cup-

ful of boiling water over this, cover, and let

stand for two minutes. Then add as manymore cups of boiling water as are needed.

OOOOA

For each person to be served measure into a

saucepan a level teaspoonful each of cocoa and

sugar. Blend these with a little milk. Then

add a cup of milk for each portion. Bring just

to a boil, over a rather slow fire, and serve im-

mediately.

23

nEGGS

In cooking eggs keep in mind that to be pal-

atable they must be delicate. They must never

be cooked until they are leathery. And they

must not be cooked without seasoning, nor

served without some sort of garnishing, such

as toast, or a leaf cf parsley, or a shred of let-

tuce.

It is safe—^when deciding how many eggs to

use for an omelet or for scrambled eggs—to

include one egg for each person to be served,

and two eggs in addition to that number. Of

course the number of poached or fried eggs to

be cooked depends upon the individual appe-

tites of those who are to eat them.

FRIED EGGS

Fried eggs, cooked soft, are the most uni-

versally popular. Have butter or bacon or

other meat drippings slowly melting in a frying-

24

EGGS

pan, while you break the eggs into a wide, shal-

low bowl, taking care not to break the yolks.

Then gently slide all the eggs into the pan, and

turn the fire up under it. Salt and pepper each

egg. With a spatula begin separating the eggs.

As soon as the whites are fairly set, turn each

eggy cook it only for a half-minute on the other

side, and put it on a hot plate to serve.

OMELET

There is nothing to be afraid of in omelet-

making, except having too hot a fire under the

skillet. Put a tablespoonful of cooking-fat into

the pan, and let it melt. Meanwhile beat the

yolks and the whites of the eggs in separate

bowls, adding to the yolks a tablespoonful of

water for each yolk. Season yolks and whites.

Lastly, add the whites to the yolks, stirring

gently until they are blended. Pour the mix-

ture into the frying-pan. Let it cook for a few

minutes, occasionally testing it by lifting up

an edge with a spatula, to see if the under side

is beginning to brown. When it is light brown,

add to the omelet any extra feature that you

may like. Lima-beans, grated cheese, rice, or

a few tablespoonfuls of tomato sauce are often

25

A PRIMER OF COOKING

used. Take the frying-pan off the fire and set

it in a moderately hot oven, with the oven-lid

open, until the top is set. Then take the pan

out of the oven, turn one-half of the omelet over

the other half, and serve.

SCRAMBLED EGGS

Scrambled eggs are not to be scrambled, lit-

erally. Scrambling makes them dry and

watery.

Break into a bowl the eggs to be cooked, and

beat them; add salt and pepper and a table-

spoonful of milk for each egg. Melt half a

tablespoonful of butter or bacon fat in a frying-

pan. With a slow fire under the pan, pour the

eggs into it, and let them alone for the first

minute of cooking. Then with a spoon gently

work at them from time to time, lifting them

from the bottom of the pan, keeping them in

one mass. When there is no liquid part left at

the edge of the pan, the eggs are done. Theywill be soft, well-moistened with milk, and deli-

cate.

POACHED EGGS

The advantage of poaching eggs rather than

frying them, lies in the opportunity poaching

26

EGGS

offers for putting an added flavor into the egg.

By simmering the egg in liquid, you can makeit absorb part of that liquid. Eggs may be

given a meat flavor by poaching them in gravy

or bouillon. They may be made rich by poach-

ing them in a little tomato sauce with spice in

it, or in a cheese cream sauce.

To poach eggs, heat the liquid to be used to

the boiling point, then lay the eggs in it, care-

fully—^in a poaching ring—and take the pan

off the fire, leaving it, however, on the stove,

covered. In four or five minutes the eggs will

be done, with a white film over each one.

STEAMED EGGS

A quick way to cook eggs for individual serv-

ing—as for a tray breakfast—is in small cas-

seroles. Drop one or two eggs into each cas-

serole, which has been buttered. Season with

salt and pepper, and put a little butter on top

of each egg. Set the casseroles in a shallow tin

baking-dish half full of hot water. Put a lid

over the casseroles. Cook over a brisk fire un-

til the whites are set.

27

in

BREAKFAST MEATS

BACON

It is almost impossible to cook bacon crisp

unless it is cut thin. Bacon bought loose by

the pound from meat markets is apt to be cut

too thick. So, although it costs a fraction more,

the boxed or jarred bacon is a better purchase.

Every slice will be thin and edible.

Have the frying-pan hot when you lay the

strips of bacon in it. With a fork turn eacli

slice as soon as the under side is seared. Then

lower the flame under the pan and keep turn-

ing the bacon until each piece is a light brown.

Drain off the grease from the pan into a glass

jar or other container, ready to be used as

cooking-fat. Let the bacon lie for a minute in

the dry pan, to drain. Then serve it. Cook two

or three slices for each person.

28

BREAKFAST MEATS

HAM

Before cooking a slice of ham, cut off the

brown rind along the side opposite the fatty-

side. Leave all the fat on. Then with a sharp

knife make short incisions along the lean side.

This is to keep the ham from curling up while

it cooks.

Have a hot frying-pan ready. Put the hamin, leave it until one side is white, then turn it.

Turn two or three times, with the fire high,

until both sides are beginning to brown. Then

turn down the fire, cover the frying-pan, and

let the ham cook slowly for at least fifteen min-

utes. At the end of this time turn the fire up

long enough to complete the browning. Asmall slice of ham will be about the right quan-

tity for three people.

SAUSAGE

Fresh country sausage is to be made into

small flat cakes about an inch and a half in

diameter, pressed into compactness, and fried

in a hot frying-pan, without any other grease

than its own. Turn the cakes often, and let

them cook not more than fifteen minutes in all.

29

A PEIMER OF COOKING

Squeeze a few drops of lemon-juice over each

cake before serving.

Smoked sausage or frankfurters should be

slit down one side and fried over a slow fire

until the skin is crisp and brown.

30

IV

HOT CAKES

There are several points to be remembered

about making hot cakes:

Have a steady heat under the griddle. Get

the griddle to the point where grease dropped

on it will sizzle, then turn the fire down low

enough simply to keep it at this temperature.

Put the cake batter, when mixed, into a

pitcher and pour it on the griddle from this.

This will make the cakes uniform in size and

shape and will do away with the mussiness of

dropping batter from a spoon.

If obtainable, use a bacon rind for a griddle

greaser. Next best to a piece of bacon rind

is the manufactured greaser that may be bought

at a hardware store for twenty-five cents. This

must be dipped into cooking-fat once or twice

during the cake-baking. Grease the griddle be-

fore each new batch of cakes.

If the cake batter doesn't sizzle when31

A PEIMEE OF COOKING

dropped on the griddle, tlie griddle is not hot

enough.

Turn the cakes when two or more bubbles

show on the upper side.

Any cake batter may be mixed the night be-

fore and kept in a cool place overnight.

FLANNEL CAKES

Beat up one egg, well salted, in a mixing-

bowl. In a half-pint measuring-cup put half

a teaspoonful of soda. Fill up the cup with

sour milk and stir until the milk is smooth.

Add this to the egg, then stir into the mixture

a half-pint sifterful of flour in which half a

teaspoonful of baking-powder has been mixed.

Stir until smooth.

This quantity will serve two people amply.

BUCKWHEAT CAKES

These must be made the night before. Put

three cupfuls of buckwheat in a mixing-bowl,

one tablespoonful of wheat flour, a pinch of salt,

a tablespoonful of molasses (this is to make the

cakes brown), half a yeast-cake crumbled up,

and enough warm water to make the whole thing

into a rather thin batter. Beat the mixture

32

HOT CAKES

thoroughly imtil all the ingredients are blended.

Cover it with a piece of cloth and leave it in

a cool place to rise overnight. If it is too thick

in the morning to pour easily from the pitcher,

thin it with milk.

There will be enough batter to serve two peo-

ple for several successive mornings. It will

keep, if it is put in a cool place.

Some sort of syrup should always be served

with hot cakes. Maple syrup is the most de-

sirable, and may be bought in liquid form or

as a lump of maple sugar, ready to be melted

with a little cold water.

There are good brands of manufactured

syrups on the market, which are combinations

of maple and granulated sugar.

Lacking any of these, one can make a good

syrup by boiling half a cupful of brown sugar

with half a cupful of cold water for a few min-

utes. Add a drop of vanilla extract, and let

cool before serving.

33

V

HOT BREADS

MUFFINS

Before starting to mix them, light the oven

with a very low flame.

Put two tablespoonfuls of butter in one of

the compartments of a muffin pan, and set this

over a low flame to melt. While it is melting,

break an egg into a bowl, add a tablespoonful

of sugar, stir together, add a cup of milk,—or half milk and half water,—add two half-pint

flour-sifterfuls of flour with which are mixed

three teaspoonfuls of baking-powder and a tea-

spoonful of salt. Lastly, add the melted but-

ter, beat for a minute or two, and pour out

by spoonfuls into the muffin pan. Have each

compartment not more than two thirds full.

Bake in the slow oven which has been heating,

until the muffins rise. This will take about ten

minutes. Then turn the fire up and let the

34

HOT BEEADS

muffins get a delicate brown. Twenty minutes

in all should be long enough to cook them.

This quantity of batter will make eight muf-

fins.

BISCUIT

The oven fire can hardly be too hot for bis-

cuit. Light the oven before starting the mix-

ing, and turn it up high.

Into a mixing-bowl sift three small sifters of

flour with which are mixed four teaspoonfuls

of baking-powder and one teaspoonful of salt.

In the center of this put three teaspoonfuls of

butter, lard, or any good vegetable fat. (See

page 84.) Work the flour and fat with yourfingers until the fat is distributed through the

flour. Make a hole in the center of the flour

and pour three fourths of a cup of cold water

into it. Work this with the flour until you have

made the whole thing into a soft ball. Get this

out on a thickly-floured board, roll into a sheet

about an inch thick, and cut it, with a biscuit-

cutter or the top of a small baking-powder can,

into rounds. Lay these close together on

greased pie pans. Bake in a hot oven until

brown.

There will be about eight biscuit.

35

A PEIMER OF COOKING

POPOVBRS

You will need a quick oven for popovers.

Grease six compartments of the muffin pan, and

into each compartment put a little dab of but-

ter,—^using about two teaspoonfuls of butter

altogether. In a mixing-bowl beat one egg^ and

add to it, while continuing to beat, one cupful

of milk, and one cup of flour with which is sifted

a pinch of salt. Pour the batter into the pan,

on top of each dab of butter. Cook with the

fire up high until the popovers pop, or rise.

Then turn the fire down rather low, and let

them get cooked through. The whole baking

will take from twenty to thirty-five minutes.

CORN BREAD

In a mixing-bowl stir together one cup of

com meal, a half-cup of flour, one third of a

cup of sugar, half a teaspoonful of salt, and

two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Beat up

one egg, in a separate bowl, and with it a cup

of milk. Add the eggs and milk to the dry in-

gredients, beat hard for a few minutes, then

pour into a loaf-cake pan and bake in a slow

even until the top is brown and firm.

36

HOT BEEADS

This quantity will make enough for four peo-

ple.

TOAST

Have the oven turned on full for at least

five minutes before you begin to make toast.

Arrange the grill as close under the flame as

it can be to accommodate the toasting-pan. Along, shallow pan is the best thing for a toaster.

Have a fork ready at hand, and a hot-pan-holder

to open the grill door with.

Cut the bread in uniform-sized slices. Put

these in the shallow pan. Slip the pan under

the flame of the grill, and leave it there, with

the grill door closed, for about a minute.

Watch the toast carefully. As soon as one slice

is brown, turn it. If the oven is very hot to

begin with, the toasting process should not take

more than two or three minutes. Butter the

toast while it is hot.

Crisp, hard toast is made by cutting the bread

very thin and toasting it with a slower fire.

Toast made on the funnel-shaped toasters

that sit over the flame is not satisfactory. It

37

A PRIMER OF COOKING

gets browned and sometimes burnt on the out-

side before it is thoroughly heated through.

With hot bread it is a good idea to serve a

little jar or bowl of some kind of marmalade.

Here are two suggestions

:

38

VI

MARMALADE

CANNED FRUIT MARMAI.ADB

Peaches, pineapple, pears, berries, or cher-

ries may be used for this. If cherries are used,

first stone them.

Drain a cupful of fruit and cut it into small

pieces. Add to it the juice of one lemon and a

cup of sugar. Cook over a medium fire for

about twenty minutes. Let it cool before serv-

ing at breakfast.

OKANGE MABMAI.ADE

Wash one orange and one lemon. With a

sharp knife cut each piece of fruit—rind, white

skin, and all—into shreds. Measure the result

and put it into a saucepan with three full meas-

ures of water to each one of shredded fruit. Set

this away to soak until the same hour the next

day. Then measure the mixture and to every

39

A PRIMER OF COOKING

cupful allow the same amount of sugar, adding

one extra cupful of sugar at the last. Put the

saucepan over a moderate fire and cook the mix-

ture until it seems thick, and will drop from

the spoon in two places at the same time, which

is the jellying test. Then pour it into hot jelly

glasses that are standing in a pan of hot water.

This quantity of marmalade should fill seven

glasses.

40

vnCEREALS

For the preparation of cooked cereal at least

two hours are required. Even the brands ad-

vertised as quick cereals must be cooked for a

long time to make them digestible.

For cereal-cooking a steam double boiler, or

steam cooker, is necessary. The ordinary-

double boiler needs too much attention and dries

the cereal up. One of these steam cookers is

a good investment. You will find that whole

meals can be cooked in it at one time.

All cooked cereals should be made with cold

water. It is easier to make them this way, and

the resulting product is thicker and richer for it.

Use the general proportions of one cup of

cereal to three cups of cold water and one half-

teaspoonful of salt. Turn the flame up high

until the water in the bottom pan is boiling,

then turn it as low as possible, and let the cereal

41

A PRIMER OF COOKING

cook for two or three hours. Morning is the

best time to cook cereal. Then it should be al-

lowed to cook until nearly noon. Stir it once

or twice during the cooking. When it is done,

take the top pan out and set it in a cool place

until time to warm it up for breakfast.

You can vary the serving of cooked cereal by

frying it sometimes, after it has become cold

and firm enough to handle as one mass. Put it

carefully in a frying-pan with several table-

spoonfuls of butter ; sift brown sugar over the

top ; turn the cereal with a spatula, and sugar

the other side. Brown with a hot fire. Serve

with one of the syrups referred to on Page 33.

Always be sure the dry cereal you serve is

crisp. If the box it came in is set in a dry, cool

place, it should keep crisp in winter as long as

a package lasts. But it can be crisped quickly

by spreading out on a pie pan the amount

needed for breakfast, and setting this in a hot

oven for less than a minute.

42

LUNCH

LUNCH

Lunch may be the one unpremeditated meaL

Its elements are simple,—an hors d'oeuvre, or

appetizer ; a hot dish ; a dessert. Lunch is the

meal for tidbits.

You can plan lunch very easily if you think

of it in terms of the individual. For example,

instead of making up a big dish of hors

d'oeuvres, a casserole of salmon, and slicing

peaches into one large glass dish, fix a separate

hors d'ceuvre for each person; cook each per-

son's creamed salmon in a ramekin, and slice

only as many peaches into individual sherbet

glasses as will be eaten.

With food thought of in this way, one cooked

potato will grow in importance; a chop, half

a cup of string-beans, or one slice of cake maybe applied to lunch, fairly, without recourse to

the practice of dividing up the left-overs amongthe family, giving one person the chop, another

the string-beans, and a third the cake. Sliced

thin, the potato may be used as a basis for an

45

A PRIMEE OF COOKING

appetizer. Mix it with mayonnaise and put

several slices on each plate, with shredded let-

tuce under them and a sliced pickle on top.

Cut the chop up, mix with it the string-beans,

seasoned ; then beat two eggs (yolks and whites

separately), add the yolks to the meat and

beans ; then the whites, stirred in lightly. Addhalf a cup of milk at the last, and turn the whole

thing into a buttered casserole to cook in a hot

oven for about ten minutes or until the top is

brown. This will make a hot dish to be di-

vided into individual portions as soon as it is

done. Divide the piece of cake into as manyparts as there are people to eat it. Spread a

layer of jelly on each piece, and lay it beside a

half-orange, or a saucer of canned fruit, or a

few stuffed dates, that form the individual des-

sert course.

Lunch, like breakfast, is a good meal to serve

on trays. The use of individual portions makes

this desirable. If it is served on trays, cover

the hot dishes with saucers, to keep them warmwhile the hors d'ceuvre is being eaten.

46

HORS D'CEUYRES

Since it is to be the appetizer of the meal, the

hors d'ceuvre must have piquancy of taste, such

as acidity, or saltiness, or sweetness,—although

sweet hors d'oeuvres usually belong to dinner, in

the form of fruit cup or half a cantaloupe.

But the real appetizer is made of such food as

olives, sweet pickles, boiled ham, tuna fish,

salmon, lettuce, pimiento, beets, salted nuts,

celery, radishes, salads with French dressing, a

thin slice of cold meat, timbales (which are de-

scribed on Page 50), stuffed green peppers, or

tart apples.

Any one item of this list may be used alone,

or in combination with almost any other. But

the arrangement counts for a good deal. Andjudgment is necessary to avoid serving too much

of a very heavy food. Here are some possible

combinations

:

A tablespoonful of tuna fish surrounded by

two stuffed olives, sliced.

47

A PEIMER OF COOKING

A lettuce leaf, with beets cut into small bits

on top of it, and a sprig of celery laid beside it.

A quarter of a slice of boiled bam, cut witb

scissors into shreds; beside it a sweet pickle

cut lengthwise, and two or three salted nuts.

A sliced peach mixed with lemon-juice and

olive-oil, laid on a lettuce leaf, with powdered

sugar sprinkled over the top.

You can see how quickly any of these can be

made, with materials for them kept on hand.

But here are a few to be made from left-over

food:

A teaspoonful of boiled rice made into a ball

and rolled in vinegar, salted, then rolled in oil.

Serve it on lettuce with a dab of mayonnaise

on top. (See Page 153.)

Scoop out the center of a boiled onion and

put into it cold peas, or lima-beans or string-

beans, which have first been mixed in a bowl

with catsup or Worcestershire sauce.

With the scissors cut into bits left-over bacon.

With a cold boiled potato mix salt, a little

48

HOES D'CEUVRES

chopped onion, and mayonnaise, and sprinkle

the bacon on top.

Half a cooked sausage cake, minced, seasoned,

and served with a drop of catsup on top. Sur-

round it with any cold vegetables on hand.

THE MAIN LUNCH DISH

In planning this main lunch dish—to be made,

preferably, of left-overs—^you will need to keep

in mind only two basic rules about left-overs

:

first, they must be taken apart ; secondly, they

must be put together again.

In other words, they must be chopped, sep-

arated from skin, bone, and gristle; shredded

with the scissors, run through the meat-grinder,

cut with a sharp knife, or sliced, according to

their different natures. And then they must

be made into compact shape again in a new

form.

There are three important combining agen-

cies that play their part in cooking left-overs.

They are, in order of importance, eggs, gravy,

and cream sauce.

With the help of eggs you can make souffles,

timbales, and fritters.

49

A PEIMER OF COOKINGSOUFFLE

The idea of souffle-making is to swell the

amomit of your food material, by combining it

with beaten egg, then baking it in a moderate

oven, like a cake, until it rises and browns on

top. It will bake in about twenty minutes. Asouffle is usually made in an earthenware cas-

serole, but an enameled baking-pan or even a

tin one will do. Grease the pan first.

As many eggs as you like may be used, to

increase the bulk of the dish. But to one cup

of chopped meat, or cooked vegetables, or flaked

salmon, two eggs will be about the suitable

proportion. To make the souffle, beat the yolks

of the eggs until they are foamy^ having

dropped a pinch of salt in before starting to

beat. Add the left-over material. Beat the

mixture until it is stiff, and add—stirring them

in gently—^the white of eggs. Half a cup of

milk should be added if a dry absorbent ma-

terial such as rice or potatoes is used.

This souffle will serve three persons.

TIMBAIiES

A timbale is an elaboration of a souffle, and

3,n adaptation of it to individual serving. It

50

THE MAIN LUNCH DISH

combines left-over food materials of all kinds

with eggy not to increase the bulk, but simply

to hold the material together. It is usually very

highly seasoned and made of two or more differ-

ent food-stuffs, which are mashed before being

put together. Each timbale is baked in a sep-

arate greased ramekin, and when done is

emptied out upside down, on the serving plate.

It may be served hot or cold, and with or with-

out a sauce.

Baked beans and ground cooked ham make a

very appetizing timbale combination. Mash

the beans smooth, add the ham, a few drops of

lemon-juice, and a quarter of a teaspoonful of

prepared mustard. Add to this one beaten egg

for each cupful of beans,—as much ham being

used as you like,—stir the mixture, and divide

it among the desired number of ramekins. Tin

gelatine molds will do very well instead of china

or earthenware ramekins. Set the ramekins

in a shallow baking-dish containing hot water.

Put this in a moderately hot oven, and bake

until the timbales are solid and a little brown

on top. By running a blunt-bladed knife around

51

A PEIMER OF COOKING

the edges and underneath, you can get the

timbales out of the cases easily.

Salmon or other fish timbales are perhaps im-

proved by being served cold, with a slice of

lemon on top of each, or with one of the fish

sauces. If it is to be served cold, let the timbale

stand in its ramekin until it is ready to be

served. It will come out of the mold better

when cold.

FKITTEBS

In fritters, which are really a form of batter-

cake, eggs, again, are used for the purpose of

holding the material together. They are the

simplest egg-combination of the three, but the

most limited, for only certain things are good

in fritter form. Canned corn, chopped ham, or

other cooked meat, rice, mashed potatoes,

shredded cooked green peppers, bananas, ap-

ples, pineapple, and peaches virtually complete

the list. The last four are suitable for only a

very dainty lunch menu. They should be served

with powdered sugar over them.

To make fritters, beat one egg for every cup-

ful of material. Season the egg with salt and

52

THE MAIN LUNCH DISH

pepper, add the left-over food to it, stir in two

tablespoonfuls of flour mixed with two tea-

spoonfuls of baking-powder, and two table-

spoonfuls of milk. If canned com is used, no

milk need be added Beat the mixture until it

bubbles, then drop it, a tablespoonful at a time,

into a frying-pan in which some cooking-fat has

been melted. Have the fire under the pan low

until the fritters have begun to cook through,

then turn up to moderate heat. Turn each

fritter wjien the under side is brown. Pile, at

one side of the pan, those that are done, while

the rest are being fried. Mash bananas for

fritter-making. Slice apples, peaches, and pine-

apple. One cupful of material will make enough

fritters for three.

There is an Italian dish of fried vegetables

that belongs in the list of fritters. Its name

is fritto misto, and it is an attractive form in

which to serve assorted left-over vegetables.

Suppose there are, in the ice-box the following

:

a tablespoonful of spaghetti cooked with to-

mato sauce, a few slices of beets, a quarter of a

cup of mashed potato, and some peas. This is a

good foundation for fritto misto. Put all these

53

A PEIMER OF COOKING

things into separate heaps on a big platter or

bread-board. Chop the spaghetti and the beets

fine, and mash the peas, keeping each vegetable

separate. Then beat up an egg in a bowl, and

pour some bread crumbs into a shallow dish.

Make each vegetable into two or three small

compact rolls or cakes. Dip each roll, first into

the eggy then into the bread crumbs, using a

sieve spoon. Fry the rolls in hot melted butter

or other cooking-fat, until they are brown all

over. Serve them with hot tomato soup poured

over them for a sauce.

HASH AND STEWS

When there are left-over gravy and cooked

meat and potatoes, the main dish may be put

together with gravy instead of with eggs, and

you will have a stew or a hash which can be

baked, or browned on the top of the stove. The

secret of good hashes and stews lies in the

preparation of the meat. There must be no

gristle or fat on it. And it must be cut or

chopped into small, uniformly shaped pieces.

Mix it thoroughly with the gravy before putting

it on to cook. Season it with something tangible,

such as a quarter of raw onion run through the

54

THE MAIN LTJNCH DISH

meat-grinder, a teaspoonful of "Worcestershire

sauce, or a pinch of powdered sage.

To make a stew, put the meat, mixed with

gravy and seasoned, in a frying-pan. Add half

a cupful of potatoes and any other vegetable

which you may have on hand. If there is no

cooked potato, and you want the stew to be

bulkier, add one raw potato, cut into very small

pieces. Season, add enough cold water to comehalf-way up the material, and cover the panwith a tight-fitting lid. Cook over a mediumfire for fifteen minutes, when the gravy and

water will be blended and the whole thing thick-

ened by the potato.

Hjash may be baked or fried. Prepare the

meat as for a stew (chopping it a little finer,

however), and add cooked potatoes or any other

vegetable desired. Raw potatoes must not be

used. Melt a tablespoonful of cooking-fat in

the frying-pan, and lay the hash in, flattening

it down into a solid mass. If you are going to

do the cooking on top of the stove, turn the flame

down low, cover the pan, and let the bottom

side of the hash get brown. Then, with a broad

55

A PEIMEE OF COOKING

spatula, turn it, keeping it in a mass if possible.

When both sides are brown it is done.

If you prefer to bake the hash, add half a

cupful of hot water to the pan, leave it uncov-

ered, and put it in a moderately hot oven. After

about ten minutes take the pan out, turn the

hash, add another half-cupful of water, and re-

place in the over. Bake until the other side is

brown. It is obvious that baking is a little moretrouble; its advantage is that it gets the hash

drier than frying.

CREAMED DISHES

Cream sauce is the third combining agency to

be used in putting left-overs together. It is

particularly good for potatoes, salted meats^

and fish.

It is very easy to make a good cream sauce.

Eemember to use approximately as much flour

as butter, and for the ordinary sauce take a

cup of milk—or half milk and half water, if nec-

essary—to one tablespoonful each of butter andflour. Melt the butter over a slow fire, add the

flour, and stir until it and the butter are smooth.

Then slowly add the milk, making sure that

the part added is thoroughly blended with the

56

THE MAIN LUNCH DISH

flour and butter before you pour in more. Keepon stirring, after the milk is in, and have the

fire still low. When the sauce begins to get

thick, put into it the left-over materials to be

used. Season with salt and pepper, and serve

when just at the boiling-point.

Creamed potatoes by themselves are an in-

sipid thing to have for the main lunch dish. So

put something in with them, to give them tang.

Some chopped ham, or shredded beef, or a little

cooked meat of any kind will do. Or put a few

slivers of mild cheese in with the sauce. This

will melt while the potatoes are warming.

To add to the attractiveness of a creamed

dish, you might set the saucepan under the

flame in the grill, where you make toast. Lowerthe grill rack to accommodate the pan. Leave

the pan under the flame for a few minutes, until

the top of the sauce is coated with brown.

CROQUETTES

Using a creamed dish for a basis, you can

very easily make the more elaborate left-over

dish, croquettes. Make the cream sauce a little

thicker than usual, using two tablespoonfuls of

57

A PEIMER OF COOKING

flour to one of butter. Then, after having added

to the sauce whatever you want to make the

croquettes of—cooked fish shredded, chopped

cooked meat, or minced ham—form the mixture

into small balls, or into flat ovals; put them

away in the ice-box to get firm ; finally dip each

ball into beaten egg, then into bread crumbs,

and fry as you would fry oysters. (See Page

119.) Serve with tomato sauce, or with a hot

sauce tartar. (See Page 109.)

58

mDESSERTS FOR LUNCH

These may be as simple as you like,—canned

fruit of any kind, first cooled in the ice-box, and

set out invitingly; sliced bananas or peaches

with powdered sugar on them; half an orange

or grape-fruit, prepared and sugared; stuffed

dates ; cake ; candy ; or fruit sauce with cookies.

Prepare the orange and the grape-fruit in the

same way. First cut around inside of each com-

partment with a sharp knife, to separate the

pulp from the white skin. Then with a pair

of scissors snip off the rays of the white fibrous

center, cut underneath it and remove it, filling

its place with sugar.

To stuff dates, have ready a saucer of granu-

lated sugar. Crack and shell some nuts. Eng-

lish walnuts, pecans, and peanuts are all good

for this purpose. Then take out the stones of

the dates, fill each date with a piece of nut, and

roll it in sugar until it is no longer sticky.

59

A PEIMER OF COOKING

Prunes, when well prepared, are both rich

and delicious. But they must be soft and sweet,

and have a heavy syrup. And they must be

served cold. Wash them with a fruit brush and

soak them overnight in cold water. In the

niorning pour off most of the water, leaving

about a cupful. Add for each prune half a tea-

spoonful of either brown or granulated sugar.

Cover the pan in which they soaked and set it

in a slow oven. Let the prunes bake for about

an hour, adding more water, if necessary, to

keep the amount the same. Cool them before

serving.

Apple sauce is quickly made, with a minimumof trouble. Pare five or six good-sized cooking-

apples, and cut them into small pieces, throw-

ing away all cores and imperfect parts. Barely

cover them with cold water in a saucepan, put a

lid on the pan, and let them cook rather slowly,

scarcely boiling, for fifteen or twenty minutes,

or until the apples are soft when tested with a

spoon. Then drain them in a wire colander,

until they are as dry as you can get them. Put

them back in the saucepan, mash them, and

add two tablespoonfuls of granulated sugar and

60

DESSERTS FOR LUNCH

a pincli of cinnamon. Stir until the sugar is

melted. Pour out into a glass dish, or into in-

dividual dishes, to cool.

Strawberry sauce^—not quite so elaborate as

strawberry preserves—is made just as apple

sauce is made, except that very little water is

used. To a pint of berries add only half a cup-

ful of water. Cook them until they are soft;

drain, mash, and add granulated sugar, and a

drop or two of lemon-juice.

61

wCAKE

It is important to understand cake-making in

general before you begin trying individual

recipes. Because as soon as you know the basic

principle you can invent your own recipes.

There are two main divisions of cake,—sponge cake, which is made without shortening

or liquid; and butter cake, which does use

shortening and liquid.

Both kinds of cake must be beaten thoroughly.

For both the yolks and the whites of the eggs

should be beaten separately,—the yolks added

first, and the whites folded in last. For sponge

cake and virtually all forms of butter cake it is

best to have the oven cold at the beginning of

the baking. This gives the cake a chance to rise

slowly before it starts to brown.

In order to mix up a cake quickly you should

have a half-pint flour-sifter, which measures

approximately a cupful. You will need, toOj a-

62

CAKE

large-sized mixing-bowl,—^big enough to accom-

modate an egg-beater without letting the batter

splash over.

Note: The word ** shortening'' is synonj-

mous with cooking-fat. For cake-making, but-

ter or one of the manufactured vegetable fats is

used instead of meat fats. (See Page 84.)

SPONGE CAKE

For sponge cake, this is the usual proportion

:

To one cup of flour use one cup of sugar and

three eggs. Add a pinch of salt and half a

teaspoonful of either lemon-juice or vanilla

flavoring. If you want to omit one egg, add a

teaspoonful of baking-powder to the flour before

sifting it. To make a white sponge cake, use

the whites of eggs only, adding one extra egg-

white, and put half a teaspoonful of cream of

tartar with the beaten whites.

Mix a sponge cake in this way : Put the egg-

yolks in the mixing-bowl, with a third of a cup-

ful of cold water. Beat them with an egg-beater

until they are frothy. Then beat in, in turn,

gradually, the sugar, the flavoring, and the

flour. As the mixture gets too solid for an egg-

63

A PRIMER OF COOKING

beater, begin beating it with a spoon. Lastly,

stir in, without beating, the beaten whites. Pour

the mixture into a greased tube pan and put it

in a cold oven. Light the fire just after you

put in the cake. The oven must be at a low tem-

perature during the whole process of baking.

The cake should bake in about three quarters

of an hour. Stick a toothpick or a broom straw

into the center of the cake. If it comes out dry,

the cake is done. Let it get almost cold before

you try to take it out of the pan.

When only the whites of egg are used, beat

the flour and the sugar into the whites.

BUTTER CAKE

A butter cake is mixed with a spoon. Mashthe shortening first, until it is almost liquid,

then add the sugar to it and mix the two thor-

oughly. Add the beaten egg-yolks, beat vigor-

ously for about three minutes, then add the

flour and the liquid alternately, beating well

after each addition. Add the flavoring, then

stir in the beaten whites carefully and turn the

batter out on greased layer-cake pans or a loaf

pan. Start in a cold oven. A standard-sized

64

CAKE

layer-cake should bake in less than half an hour

;

a loaf cake will need from three quarters to an

hour.

The proportions of a butter cake are these

:

To three cupfuls of flour, use three teaspoonfuls

of baking-powder, one cupful of sugar, one

cupful of liquid,—either milk or water (milk

will make the cake more nourishing but water,

on the other hand, will give a lighter consist-

ency),—one-third of a cupful of shortening, a

half-teaspoonful of salt, and three eggs. Adda teaspoonful of whatever flavor you like.

If you want to make a white butter cake,

leave out the yolks of the eggs, and add one

additional egg-white.

OHOCX)LATE CAKE

To make a chocolate cake, use half a cupful

more of sugar and add two squares of^hocolate.

Melt the chocolate over a slow fire, with enough

water to cover it. You can use cocoa instead,

^Ye tablespoonfuls, but if you do, use a half-cup

of shortening instead of a third of a cup. Cocoa

lacks the fat of chocolate, and the cake would

otherwise be too dry. Put either the chocolate

65

A PEIMEE OF COOKING

or the cocoa in the cake just before you add the

whites of egg.

SPICE CAKE

A spice cake is made by adding a teaspoonful

each of cinnamon and allspice, a half-teaspoon-

ful of powdered clove, and, if you want them,

three tablespoonfuls of chopped raisins. Put

these ingredients in before you add the beaten

egg-whites. It is advisable to bake a spice cake

in a loaf. If you want to make a quick icing

for it, melt five tablespoonfuls of butter and

beat into it half a cup of granulated sugar and

two tablespoonfuls of cinnamon. Spread this

over the top of the cake when it is ahnost done.

It will melt in the oven, and form a glazed

covering.

OUP CAKES

For cup cakes make half the usual amount of

cake batter and pour it into greased muffin

rings, making each ring about two thirds full.

Cup cakes will bake in about twenty minutes.

A good addition to cup cakes is a cup of chopped

nuts put with the batter. Then when the cakes

are done, decorate the top of each one with

half a nut meat.

66

CAKECOOKIES

Cookies are a form of butter cake, made very

stiff. They are mixed in virtually the same wayas ordinary butter cake. They are to be rolled

out in a thin sheet before they are baked, so a

little bit of batter will go far. This is a safe

estimate for a batch of two or three dozen

cookies: one fourth cup of shortening, three

quarters of a cup of sugar, one egg, two table-

spoonfuls of milk and about two and a half

cupfuls of flour. The amount of flour must he

indefinite because it depends upon the growing

stiffness of the batter. You can use either sweet

or sour milk with cookies. Sour milk furnishes

a more agreeable taste. If you use sour milk,

dissolve in it, before adding it to the batter, a

half-teaspoonful of baking-soda. This is to

neutralize the acid and render the milk sweet in

effect.

To make cookies, mix the shortening and the

sugar together, add the egg unbeaten (the aim

in the making of cookie batter is for compact-

ness rather than lightness) then add the milk,

half a teaspoonful of vanilla or other flavoring,

and lastly the flour, cup after cup until the batter

67

A PRIMER OF COOKING

is stiff enough to be taken up in your hands, and

formed into one mass. When it has reached

this point, set it away for several hours, or

overnight, if possible, to get it stiffer, so that

it can be rolled out very thin. When you are

ready to bake it, work with the batter in small

quantities at a time, rolling it out, cutting it

into shapes with assorted cookie-cutters, and

baking these on the reverse side of pie pans, in

a hot oven. It will be necessary to grease the

pie pans only once. You can bake many series

of cookies one after the other. Watch the

cookies closely while they bake. A panful will

brown in a few minutes. As each set is done

lay the cookies out flat on a big platter or a

piece of paper, and dust powdered sugar over

them while they are hot. Cookie batter may be

kept for several days, if there is a cool place

for it. You will not have to roll it all out at

one time.

CHOCOLATE COOKIES

There is a quick kind of chocolate cake that

amounts ahnost to cookies in its finished form.

It can be mixed and baked in about twenty

minutes, all told.

68

CAKE

Here is the way it is made : In a small sauce-

pan put a heaping tablespoonful of shortening

and a square of chocolate. Melt these over a

slow fire. Meanwhile beat an egg in a mixing-

bowl, add to it half a cup of sugar, a quarter of

a cup of flour, and a few drops of vanilla. Beat

well, then add the melted shortening and choco-

late. Pour the batter out on a greased pie pan.

Cover the top of the batter with chopped nut

meats and bake in a hot oven until the top is

set, or about ten minutes. The batter will

still be soft underneath, when you take it out

of the oven. Let it stand for a while, to cool,

then cut it in squares like fudge. These cakes,

as soon as they are cold, should be placed in a

covered jar.

GINGERBREAD

Gingerbread follows rules of its own. It is a

butter cake, but it is made with molasses instead

of sugar and depends for its flavor upon spices.

Here is an easy recipe for soft gingerbread:

Break an egg into a bowl and slowly stir into

it three fourths of a cup of molasses. Add a

cupful of flour with which are sifted one tea-

spoonful each of cinnamon and ginger. Heat

69

A PRIMER OF COOKING

to the boiling-point half a cnp of water. Pour

this over a tablespoonful of butter and a tea-

spoonful of baking-soda, in a cup; it will in

one operation melt the butter and dissolve the

soda. Add this liquid to the batter, beat well,

and pour into a cake pan. Bake in a very slow

oven for about half an hour, or until a straw

inserted into the cake will come out dry.

ICINGS

Cake icings may be either cooked or mixed

cold. The cold ones are simpler of course and

for most purposes they will be satisfactory.

Manufactured cake icings of vanilla and choco-

late may be bought, which require only a min-

ute ^s time to moisten them and spread them

on a cake. Or you can make cold icings your-

self, by using cocoa, powdered sugar, milk,

and a flavoring.

For a cold chocolate icing for a standard-

sized cake, take a cup of sugar and half a cupful

of cocoa. Mix them and add gradually enough

milk to make the icing of the right consistency

to spread. There is danger of adding too muchmilk. Half a tablespoonful is enough to start

70

CAKEwith. If you add too much you will have to addmore sugar and cocoa.

To make a white icing use a cup and a halfof powdered sugar, with milk and a drop or twoof vanilla or lemon-juice.

A cooked chocolate icing is made like fudge.Put half a cupful of grated chocolate in asaucepan with a cup of sugar and one fourthof a cupful of milk. Let this boil without stir-ring for ten minutes. Then take it from thefire, put it in a cool place for ^ve or ten minutes,add a small piece of butter, and beat it untilit is thick enough to spread. A few marsh-mallows beaten with the icing will improve it.

Make a caramel icing with a cupful of brownsugar and one fourth of a cupful of water. Letthis boil until it will spin a thread when youdrop it from the spoon. Beat, when it is partlycooled, flavor it with vanilla or lemon-juice, andspread it on the cake.

A boiled white icing will require the whites oftwo eggs. Have them beaten stiff, ready in abig bowl. In a saucepan cook together a cupfulof sugar and one third of a cupful of water,

71

A PEIMER OF COOKING

boiling them until they make a syrup that will

spin a thread. Pour the syrup, as soon as it is

done, into the beaten egg-whites, stirring the

mixture as you pour. Keep on beating, after

the syrup has been poured in, until the icing gets

thick. Add a few drops of vanilla before youspread it on the cake. Cocoanut or chopped

nuts might be mixed with the icing or sprinkled

over the cake after the icing is spread on. Can-

died cherries sliced make a pretty decoration.

72

DINNER

DINNER

A perfect dinner satisfies but does not stuff

you. It is pleasant to eat because it is madeup of a number of surprising, delicious things,

each one of which leaves you wishing for just

a bite or two more. And in the end the com-

posite effect is satisfying.

By all means let it be served in courses. This

will not mean jumping up from the table. Themain course and dessert can sit on a side table

or on a tea-wagon, beside the hostess, until they

are needed. Covers may be kept on the hot

dishes. Then as each course is finished the

dishes from it can be put on a lower shelf of the

tea-wagon or at one side of the serving-table.

All this is possible without any one 's getting up

once from the table.

There is an economical reason for having a

soup course at dinner: it begins the satisfying

of hunger so that by the time the meat is served

some of the corners of the appetite have been

75

A PEIMER OF COOKING

rubbed off. And there is a digestive reason, too

;

soup prepares the system for more solid food,

by warming and stimulating it. But it is not

wise to serve more than a cupful of soup at

dinner. More than this will spoil the appetite

for the things to follow.

In planning dinner, the great point is to have

it a balanced meal. That is, the courses should

dovetail into one another, without repetitions

of the same food element; and no one course

should be too heavy in itself. A meal of cream

of potato soup, roast pork, sweet potatoes, cole-

slaw, and blanc-mange, for instance, would be

poorly chosen for two reasons: it repeats the

milk element by having milk both in soup and

in blanc-mange; it repeats the potato element

by having potatoes both in the soup and in the

main course ; then the main course is much too

heavy to follow a heavy soup course. If this

dinner were changed to a thin soup, roast pork,

sweet potatoes, a plain lettuce salad with

French dressing, and blanc-mange, it would be

balanced.

In general, with roasts of meat, steaks and

braised meat dishes, a thin, light soup or bouil-

lon is preferable, and the salad and dessert

76

DINNER

courses should be light. By a light dessert is

meant one not using much milk, eggs, or flour

in the preparation. Fruit, gelatine, fruit whips,and cottage-pudding are light desserts. Pie,

custards, puddings, and rich cakes are heavyones.

Make a festival of dinner, by using always thefinest china, silverware, and table coveringsyou have. Use a low light for the table,—

a

chandelier or a table lamp. Finish the mealwith after-dinner coffee in little cups.

77

SOUP

Perhaps the easiest thing to learn to make

well—and certainly the most economical thing

—

is soup. There are three kinds,—^meat soup,

vegetable soup and cream soup.

The theory of soup-making is the drawing out

of juice from a solid substance. So the soup

must be begun with cold water ; hot water would

sear the surface of the material and in that waykeep in a large proportion of the juices. The

process of drawing out juice is a long one.

Therefore the soup must be allowed to cook at

a very low temperature for a long time. Andsince the juices, as they are drawn from the

solid substance, must not be lost by going up in

steam, the soup kettle needs a tight-fitting lid,

to be kept on it during the period of cooking.

Of the three kinds, meat soups are the most

important, for they have the widest range of

variation and are most appropriate for dinner.

78

SOUP

Never buy meat or meat bone for soup.

Scraps of steak, chops, and boiling pieces, and

gristly, bony parts of roasts will do just as

well and cost nothing. Soup can be made with

either cooked or uncooked meat.

You must keep a big stock of seasonings.

These come in little paper boxes with perfor-

ated lids for sifting out easily. You will need

the following: thyme, sage, powdered clove,

whole cloves, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, celery

seed, mace, and some bay leaves. Besides these

get a bottle of kitchen bouquet,—a liquid used

to give flavor and a brilliant brown color to

soups and gravies. Onions should be on hand

always, and so should parsley, fresh or dried.

MEAT SOUP

If, then, you have just had a roast of beef or

veal, have used every bit of the lean meat, and

have nothing left but the foundation of bone,

fat, and stringy meat, put all this in the soup

kettle, salt it as freely as you would salt that

much meat at the table, add to it half a tea^

spoonful of kitchen bouquet, half a bay leaf, a

slice of onion, three cloves, and just enough

water to cover it. Put the lid on tight and set

79

A PEIMEB OF COOKING

the kettle over a barely lighted fire. Start the

soup in the morning, if possible. Let it simmer

all day until bedtime. Add more water during

the day, if necessary, to keep about the orig-

inal quantity. You will not have to stay at home

to watch the soup, for it cannot go dry if the

lid is on tight and the fire very low. After it has

cooked all day, take it off the fire, strain it

through a wire colander to remove from it all

solid matter, and let the liquid stand overnight

in a cool place. In the morning it will be cov-

ered with a thin cake of white fat. Lift this

off, carefully, and save it for cooking purposes

;

soup fat is always savory from the seasonings.

The soup, if it has stood in the ice-box all

night, will probably be in the form of gelatin,

—

an infallible sign of good soup.

But whether it has gelatinized or not, it maybe thinned a little, like canned soup, before

being heated up for serving. During the re-

heating you might cook a tablespoonful of rice

in the soup, or a stalk or two of celery cut into

dice. And there are many brands of noodles on

the market that are made particularly for soup,

notably alphabet noodles and vermicelli; they

can be cooked in about ten minutes. If there

80

SOUP

is more soup than can be used at one meal, the

rest will last for two or three days in the ice-

box. You can change the character of it, on the

second reheating, by adding a spoonful of to-

mato sauce to it.

You can of course use two or more kinds of

meat in the same soup, and both cooked and

uncooked meat. The seasonings may be varied

to suit your taste. But use only a little of each

seasoning—particularly of bay leaf—and try to

have one flavor more dominant than the rest.

Onion would be dominant in the soup just

described. Cabbage might have been used in-

stead—only two leaves of it—and a pinch of

mace instead of bay leaf, or a teaspoonful of

dried parsley instead of cloves,

VEGETABLE SOUP

The vegetable soups, commonly called purees,

are thick and very nourishing. They may be

made in an hour or less. Potatoes, cooked dried

beans or peas, and canned vegetables of all

kinds are used for a foundation.

They follow the principle of meat soups. Cut

the vegetables into small pieces, salt them, and

add some seasoning element. This may be a

81

A PEIMER OF COOKING

slice of onion, some celery tops, a pinch of dry

mustard. Cover with cold water, put a lid on

the kettle, and cook over a slow fire. At the

end of an hour, hold a wire colander over a

bowl and strain the soup into the bowl. With a

potato-masher force the vegetable itself through

the colander. With a tablespoon you must keep

clearing the under part of the colander as the

vegetable pulp comes through. When this is

done, melt a tablespoonful of butter in the

empty saucepan, add to it a tablespoonful of

flour, and stir them together until they are

smooth. Gradually add the soup mixture, with

the saucepan over the fire, stirring as you pour

it, and let the whole thing come to a boil. It

will be thick and well blended. It is now ready

to be served, or to be set away to be reheated

and served later.

CREAM SOUP

Cream soups are more expensive than the

others, a little more complicated in the making,

and too rich to serve with any but a very light

dinner or as the main dish for lunch.

They are made in the top part of a double

boiler. Almost any vegetable except dried

82

SOUP

ones that require long cooking, may be used.

These may be used too, of course, if they have

first been cooked soft. Celery, com, string

beans, carrots, lettuce, and asparagus are most

often used.

For an example, choose cream-of-celery soup.

Use only the rough, outer stalks, saving the

tender ones for an hors d'oeuvre at lunch. Washthe stalks and leaves, scrape away any brown

places, and cut the celery into small pieces.

Put these, with all the leaves, in the double

boiler. Salt them, add half an onion- cut into

slices and half a carrot cut into thin threads.

Pour over this a pint of milk or half a pint each

of milk and water. Put boiling water in the

bottom of the double boiler and set the soup on

over a high flame until the water is boiling rap-

idly in the lower pan. Then turn the fire downrather low,—just high enough to keep the water

at the boiling-point. Let the soup cook, tightly

covered, for three-quarters of an hour. At the

end of this time strain it through a wire col-

ander, then carefully take out the pieces of

celery and carrot and add them to the liquid.

In the saucepan mix butter and flour and add

the soup to them gradually as you did when

83

A PEIMER OF COOKINa

making the puree. But be sure not to let the

soup reach the boiling-point, for it is likely to

curdle if it boils. It may be reheated without

the double boiler, but must never boil.

CfOOKING-FATS

You will find it convenient to keep the fat

that you lift off meat soups (See Page 80), in a

glass jar separate from the fat drained from

bacon or ham ; for both types of fat have their

special uses. Soup fat may be used for all meat-

frying, for frying fritters, batter-cakes, and

croquettes, and even for making dumplings to

go with a meat stew (See Page 98) or for the pie

crust of a salmon pie (See Page 117). Bacon

and ham fat may be substituted for butter in

frying eggs (including omelet and scrambled

eggs) and potatoes. Tomatoes (See Page 148)

are much improved in flavor if they are fried in

bacon fat rather than butter.

The choice of appropriate fats for each kind

of cooking lies with your own tastes, and with

the demands of economy. Butter might be

used for every kind of cooking or baking. But

it is expensive. Olive-oil, which is excellent for

frying steaks or reheating green or canned veg-

84

SOUP

etables, also is expensive. Lard's uses are lim-

ited almost exclusively to pastry-making and

to the frying of batter-cakes, fritters, and

breaded meats,—^when the cheaper and more

savory soup fat is lacking. A reliable, mod-

erately economical fat which can be used for

virtually every purpose except for the making

of cream sauces, for the butter-and-milk dress-

ing for potatoes, and for frying eggs, is the

manufactured compounds made from peanut-

oils, cotton-seed oils, or vegetable oils. These

come in cans of various sizes, fitted with detach-

able lids, and are mild in flavor, and as white as

lard. This manufactured cooking-fat can safely

be used instead of butter in any kind of baking.

In the baking of white cakes, particularly, it is

superior to butter, because of its lack of color.

85

nMEATS

There is no absolute way to cook any cut of

meat. Personal taste enters into consideration

;

so do the amount of time you have to spend and

the amount of money. If you are interested in

creating meat dishes,—ones that will be remem-

bered for a new flavor or for a peculiar piquancy

of sauce and garnish,—^you will more than likely

cook the same cut of meat differently every time

you have it.

But at least you will want to avoid bleakness

in your meat-cooking,—pale, stringy boiled

beef, served with only its own thin liquid to give

it zest ; steak that always tastes the same, with

a uniformly mild, usual gravy; ungamished,

bedraggled-looking baked meat; stews that

never vary their carrots, potatoes and lamb.

If you once understand the principle upon

which all meat is cooked, you can form your

own theories : and you will find that the cooking

86

MEATS

of meat becomes a fascinating, never-solved

game.

Meat, to be made appetizing, must undergo

two processes. It must first be browned to keep

in its flavor and juices. Then it must be cooked

long enough to soften its fibers. The browning

is done on top of the stove, usually in the pan

in which the meat is to be cooked tender. The

cooking is done in the oven, under the grill of

the oven, or on top of the stove, according to the

nature and the size of the cut.

The meat is seasoned during the second

process rather than the first because salt is apt

to make the juices run out. And, since it is the

seasoning, even more than the cooking, that

makes the meat good, you can see how important

it is to surround the meat, during the period of

softening, with savory elements for it to absorb.

If the piece of meat is not one of the tender

cuts—such as tenderloin steak, lamb chops, sir-

loin or porterhouse steak, or veal liver—or if

it is chunky in shape and therefore suitable for

roasting or baking, then this surrounding ele-

ment should be liquid. Otherwise it may be

sliced vegetables, herbs, or a dash of condiment.

87

A PEIMER OF COOKING

So we get to this general rule : Tender, thin

cuts of meat, including tender steaks and chops,

are cooked quickly without any surrounding

liquid. They are either fried or broiled. They

are made savory with dry seasonings, not added,

sometimes, until the process of cooking is fin-

ished ; that is, the seasonings are often put into

the sauce that is served with the meat. On the

other hand, the bigger pieces of meat, such as

three- or four-pound roasts and boiling-cuts,

and the pieces that come from the muscular

parts of the animals : flank steaks, rump steaks,

shoulder, and shank, are cooked for a long

time, in some sort of liquid. Then, in most

cases, this liquid forms the basis for the sauce

to be eaten with the meat.

STBAK

Because the process is shorter, you might be-

gin with steak-cooking. But steak is an ex-

pensive cut ; having learned how to cook it, you

will be wise to keep it only for special occa-

sions and concentrate upon the more slowly

cooked meats.

Unless there is a strong reason for serving

the steak whole you will find it easier and more

88

MEATSattractive to cut it into little individual roundsbefore you begin to cook it. Wipe each side of

the steak with a piece of damp white paper, andlay it out on a slightly floured board. Cut the

rounds, trimming off some of the fat. Lay awayany steak that you don't use, to make into alunch dish for the next day. Let each piece of

steak get covered lightly with flour. Put twotablespoonfuls of butter or cooking-fat or olive-

oil into a hot frying-pan to melt. Then lay thesteak in with the flame turned up high. Aftera few minutes turn each piece. When both sides

are beginning to brown, turn them often, keep-ing the fire high. Season the pieces after aboutfive minutes, with salt, pepper, a pinch of sage,

and a pinch of powdered clove. The steak will

be done in less than ten minutes. Lay it at oneside of the frying-pan, away from the intense

heat. Turn the flame down a little. Then addto the juice in the pan a cupful of canned peasor lima beans or mushrooms or stuffed olives

cut in halves, or celery cut into half-inch pieces.

Brown this gently. When it is done lay the

steak on a platter, garnish it with the brownedvegetable, and cover it with a sauce made fromthe grease and juices in the pan.

89

A PRIMER OF COOKING

A simple sauce is made by adding a very little

flour to the juices,—^half a tablespoonful is a

safe amount,—stirring this until it is brown and

blended, then slowly adding less than a cupful

of cold water or cold left-over soup if you have

it. Stir constantly and season with salt and

pepper. When this is smooth, it is ready to be

poured over the steak.

If you want to broil the steak, light the oven

before you begin the cutting up and flouring of

the meat. Put the rounds in a broiling-rack and

hold the handles of it securely shut. When the

grill of the oven is hot, open the grill door, stick

the broiler in, and expose each surface of the

steak to the flame for a minute, to sear the skin.

Turn the broiler two or three times during this

process. Then lower the grill flame slightly and

continue turning until the steak is cooked

through. Lay it on a hot platter and pour a

sauce over it. You might use one made thus

:

Melt a tablespoonful of butter, add to it the

juice of half a lemon, and beat it with a fork

until it is foamy. Put some of it on each round

of steak then add a bit of parsley on top.

90

MEATSCHOPS AKD LIVER

Lamb chops are cooked just like steak. Porkand veal chops need a little longer period after

they are browned. Lamb chops may be broiled

because they are as tender as steak; but it is

safer to fry pork and veal chops. Turn the

flame down very low and let them simmer with

a lid on the pan for fifteen or twenty minutes.

Veal liver must have a preliminary coating overit to hold in the juices even before it is put in

the pan to brown. This coating is put on withboiling water. Put the liver in a colander andpour the water over it until the surfaces get

white. Cook liver just like pork chops, allow-

ing it to simmer after it is brown.

BOAST BEEF

If you want a roast of beef, try a three-poundpiece from the rump, called a rump boiling-

piece, instead of buying the more expensive rib

roast. You will find the flavor excellent andthere will be more meat left over for the nextday, for a rump boil is a very lean, meaty cut,

while a rib roast has all the waste of the rib

bones.

Here is one way to cook it : In a baking-pan

91

A PRIMER OF COOKING

which has a tight-fitting lid,—preferably an

iron Dutch oven,—melt two tablespoonfuls of

butter. Drop into this two medium-sized

onions, pared and sliced. Salt them and stir

them until they are pale brown and beginning to

soften. Then push them to one side of the pan.

Lay the piece of meat in. Hbld each surface

of it against the bottom of the pan until it is

seared all over and brown. Then season it with

salt and pepper and a pinch of mace, and take

it out of the pan. Add a tablespoonful of flour

to the grease in the pan, stir it, and let it get

brown and blended. Mix the onions with the

flour and add two cupfuls of cold water, slowly,

stirring all the time. When this sauce has

reached the boiling-point put the meat back in

the pan, turn out the fire under it, cover the pantightly, and put it in a hot oven. As soon as

the pan is in the oven turn the flame down to a

low temperature. Let the meat bake for about

two hours. Look at it once or twice in that

time to see if there is enough water in the pan.

If you like, you can cook potatoes in with the

meat. This will give them a savory meat taste

and brown them, too. Pare the potatoes andcut them into quarters or slice them with a

92

MEATScabbage-cutter, to make them attractive. Themore finely cut they are, the less time theywill need to cook. Lay them beside the meatand turn the oven fire up higher. They will bedone in from twenty to twenty-five minutes.Then the meat and the potatoes are ready to goon their platter. The sauce is ready, too, all

brown and smooth and savory of onions.

POT BOAST

This way of baking meat is scarcely differentfrom oven-roasting, except that a pot roast is

cooked entirely on top of the stove. So, if it is

a pot roast you want, proceed just as before,but allow the baking pan to simmer over a slowburner for about three hours. And instead ofputting potatoes in with it you could makemacaroni or rice the starchy vegetable; bothof these need the richness of taste that meatjuice can give them. Put them in an hour be-fore the meat is done.

BAKED MEATS

^

If you are cooking one of the flatter baking-pieces,—such as round or flank steak,—doublepork chops or hreaded chops, you will followthe same principle of browning the meat first

93

A PEIMER OF COOKING

in a frying-pan or baking-pan, then making a

sauce to bake the meat in or simply putting

water or soup stock in the pan instead. Of

course the smaller and flatter the piece of meat

is, the less water is necessary, and the less time

is needed to cook the meat tender. As a rule

add just enough liquid to come halfway up the

bulk of the meat.

Baked steak and stuffed or breaded chops

need some special preparation before they are

ready to be browned in the pan and baked.

Steak is often breaded or stuffed before being

baked. To bread it, cut it into rounds, just as

you would cut sirloin or tenderloin steak into

rounds for frying, and remove most of the fat.

Beat an egg in a bowl ; season it with salt and

pepper. Put some bread or cracker crumbs

in a shallow dish. Dip each piece of steak first

into the egg, then into the crumbs. Finish by

putting it in the hot frying-pan. Veal chops,

pork chops, and mutton chops are breaded the

same way.

To stuff a steak, rub it thoroughly with a

damp piece of paper, lay it out, whole, on a

94

MEATSfloured board, and sprinkle it with crumbledbits of bread. Season the bread with salt andpowdered sage. Dot the bread with butter.

Then roll the steak up like a jelly roll, tie it withstring, and put it in the frying-pan.

Either lamb or pork chops may be boughtdouble, with a pocket cut between the two to

hold a stuffing. Lamb chops are so small that

they may be fried, slowly, when they are stuffed,

instead of being baked. But it is safer to bakethem, for from half an hour to three-quarters,

in a moderate oven. Make the stuffing of crum-bled bread, seasoned with leaf sage and salt andpepper. With lamb chops you can get a deli-

cate flavor if you moisten the stuffing with ateaspoonful of tomato sauce. (For an accom-panying sauce, see A on Page 105.)

Experiment with your stuffed pork chops andlamb chops, by baking them without a lid overthe baking-pan, and without any liquid addedto them. Use more grease in the browning of

them, and as they bake, occasionally lift upsome of the grease in the bottom of the panwith a spoon and pour it over them. They

95

A PRIMER OF COOKING

should get crisp on the outside and mealy in-

side.

This process is real roasting. It is suitable

for all fat roasts, such as roasts of veal, pork,

or lamb. It is not best for beef roasts, unless

it is very skillfully done.

It has the advantage of making the roast

drier inside than baking makes it, of getting the

outside crisper, and of keeping from the meat

all extraneous flavors, which seasoned sauce or

hot water will give to it.

This plain roasting may be varied by roast-

ing with the help of sliced vegetables. Make a

bed of sliced potatoes, carrots, and any sort of

canned vegetables. Season these, and lay the

roasting-meat on top of them after you have

browned it in another pan. As the meat

roasts, the vegetable liquid will mix with the

grease from the meat itself, so that what youwill have to baste the roast with will be a most

savory gravy. To roast, have the fire high for

about twenty minutes, then turn it to a moder-

ate height for the rest of the cooking. Themeat is done when you can prick little shreds

from it easily, with a fork.

96

MEATSMEAT LOAP

Meat loaf is economical, depending for its

flavor upon tlie seasoning it gets;ground meat

at best is almost flavorless. The loaf must be

held together with egg. Beat up one egg for

each pound of ground steak. Season the egg

with salt and pepper and add the meat to it.

Then add half a cupful of bread crumbs to

increase the bulk. Cooked rice or mashed po-

tatoes will do even better if they are on hand.

Make the meat into a flat loaf and when it is

compact lay it in the frying pan. When the

under side of the loaf is brown, turn it, to

brown the upper side. Lift it with a spatula,

carefully, so that the loaf does not break. Youcan cook an onion, sliced, in the grease around

the meat, to form the foundation for a piquant

sauce, or, instead of that, a sliced tomato, or a

quarter of a can of stewed tomato. Or, if you

sprinkle flour on top of the meat loaf and rub

some flour with a spoon into the grease in the

pan, before pouring on the boiling water in

which the loaf is to bake, there will be a gravy

around the meat when it is done. Drop some

Worcestershire sauce or catsup into this, before

serving it over the loaf.

97

A PRIMER OF COOKINGSTEW

If yon intend to have a meat stew, it will save

cooking-time to tell the meat dealer to cnt the

boiling-meat up into small pieces. Drop these,

after yon have floured them, into the frying-

pan, and be sure to brown every side of every

piece. Stewed meat is cooked entirely under

water. So, after browning the pieces, pour

over them enough boiling water—or soup, if

you have it—to cover the meat. Put the lid on

the pan, turn the flame down to simmering heat,

and let the stew cook for an hour or more. Then

add any vegetables you want: sweet potatoes

will go well with veal or lamb ; rice or Irish po-

tatoes with beef ; add carrots, cooked or canned

lima beans, asparagus, string beans, peas, or

celery. Cook the stew a half-hour longer, to

soften the potatoes, which should of course be

cut up fine.

Then, in a small mixing-bowl, make dump-

lings to finish and thicken the stew. Sift a tea-

spoonful of baking powder with a cupful of

flour and a pinch of salt. Mix with the flour

a teaspoonful of butter, until the two are

blended. Do this mixing with your fingers.

98

MEATS

Then add just enough cold water,—^not morethan a quarter of a cupful,—to make the flour

into a soft wad. Drop this, a little at a time,

into the stew. When it is in, put the lid on the

stew tight and cook for fifteen minutes. Then

the stew and dumplings are ready to be served

in a tureen.

CASSEROLE DISHES

Based on the principle of the stew—^that is,

meat cut into pieces, browned, and cooked for

a long time in a covering liquid—^is the theory

of casserole baking. It is the favorite cooking-

method with the French. Their casseroles are

fitted to cook either on top of the stove or in the

oven, which is a good plan because it makes it

possible to do the browning and cooking all in

the same pan, thus conserving every flavor and

bit of juice. However, these casseroles cannot

very well be used for serving the finished dish,

so some of the essence is lost, finally, in the

transferring of the meat to a serving-dish. But

this difficulty is solved by the use of one of the

old-fashioned baking dishes of enameled ware,

—the kind meant for baked beans and macaroni

with cheese. It can cook over the fire and in

99

A PEIMER OF COOKING

the oven and later it will fit into a silver holder,

ready for the table. It is only necessary to find

for it a tin lid that will fit tightly over it, dur-

ing the process of cooking.

For casserole cooking you can use any kind

of meat, cooked or uncooked, with almost any

kind of sauce or vegetables. But the season-

ing must be adequate. The meat must cook

long enough to be thoroughly soft. The vege-

tables must be adapted to one another in both

color and taste. Carrots and sweet potatoes,

for instance, would not be good in combination

because they are the same color. But carrots

and peas or lima beans or string beans would

be very attractive together. Celery is almost

tasteless,—although it is pleasantly redolent

when it is cooked,—so it should be put with

canned corn or beets or tomatoes.

Here is a suggestion for a casserole dish

:

In a frying-pan melt a tablespoonful of butter.

Brown in it a quarter of a pound of ground

steak and two sliced onions. Put these in a

greased casserole, season them with salt, pep-

per, a pinch of mace, and one of powdered

100

MEATS

clove. On top of them put three pared and

diced potatoes, season them, then pour half a

can of tomatoes over the whole thing. The

tomato liquid should come to the top of the po-

tatoes ; if necessary, add enough cold water to

fill out. On the very top put a. tablespoonful

of washed, uncooked rice. Season the rice.

Put a cover over the casserole and bake for an

hour and a quarter in a moderately hot oven.

It is done when the rice is crisp and brown.

Serve in the casserole. If you use one of the

enameled casseroles, do the preliminary brown-

ing in it, too.

Even small amounts of meat may be made

into casserole dishes by putting vegetables

with them and cooking the whole thing in a

good sauce. If you have a small piece of round

or sirloin steak, cooked or uncooked, left from

another meal, you can cut it into little strips

and combine it with a quarter of a can of to-

matoes, a quarter of a can of corn, and a potato

sliced thin, and bake it until the potato is soft.

If the steak is uncooked, brown all of its sur-

faces before putting it in the casserole.

101

A PRIMER OF COOKINGHOW MUCH MEAT TO BUY

A sirloin steak weighing about a pound and

a half will serve four persons.

A small tenderloin steak will serve two, if

it is cut thick.

A porterhouse steak will serve four or five.

It is a safe estimate to allow two chops for

each person; or one double chop.

One pound of liver will serve four persons.

A meat loaf made from one pound of steak

will serve three.

A three- or four-pound piece of meat, baked

or in a pot roast, will serve about six persons.

One pound of stewing-meat will hardly do for

more than two persons, because of the amount

of waste in bone and fat.

In buying veal steak, pork steak, or round

steak allow one pound for two persons.

102

in

SAUCES

It is obvious that in the cooKing anu serving

of meat you are limited in point of variety only

by the number of sauces you can invent. Take

the serving of a veal cutlet, for instance. It

may have a tomato sauce one day, a velvet sauce

the next, a brown sauce, an onion sauce, a cheese

sauce. And the difference in the taste of the

cutlet will be surprising. The same is true of

the serving of fish and vegetables.

So it is important to understand the forma-

tion of sauces.

A sauce is, basicly, the juice extracted from

meat, fish, or vegetables, separately or in com-

bination. This juice may be gotten by putting

soup in the sauce instead of water; by using,

instead of butter, the grease left in the frying-

pan after the meat has cooked in it, as the

foundation of the sauce-thickening; by cooking

for a short time sliced vegetables and herbs in

103

A PEIMER OF COOKING

butter, to extract their liquid ; or by using juice

squeezed from uncooked fruits and vegetables.

Which of these methods is to be used depends

upon the occasion, the supplies on hand, and

the demands of the particular sauce.

A sauce is usually thickened a little. This

is done by first mixing flour with butter or

other grease that has been melted in a frying-

pan, then adding the liquid element slowly,

stirring all the time, and having the flame

turned low.

The color of the sauce will depend in large

measure upon the way you prepare the thick-

ening. If you leave the flour in the grease

long enough to brown it, the sauce will be brown.

If you add the liquid immediately after the flour

is blended, the sauce will be white. Of course

a dark soup stock added to the sauce will make

it dark in any case. So will a few drops of

kitchen bouquet, which will be found most use-

ful in sauce-making. With the help of kitchen

bouquet you can make a meaty, brown sauce to

serve with warmed-up meat, even if you have

no left-over soup or gravy.

Here are some representative sauces:

104

SAUCES

AIf you are having stuffed pork chops (See

Page 95), that have been baked with a little hot

water around them, so that there will be no

thick sauce with them when they are done, you

can make a sauce in this way: Take the chops

from their baking-pan and put the pan over the

fire; it will have in it a mixture of grease and

meat stock. With a tablespoon lift off most of

the grease, leaving the browned stock in the

pan. Put the grease in a small bowl, blend with

it a tablespoonful of flour and pour a spoonful

of liquid from the pan into the bowl. Whenthe thickening is smooth add it to the liquid

in the pan, then pour on enough soup stock or

cold water to make as much sauce as you need.

Season it with salt and pepper. When it is

thick and boiling, serve it.

If you find that the water has all boiled away,

or if you roast the stuffed chops instead of

baking them, simply add half a cupful of cold

water co the grease in the pan, set it over a hot

fire, season it and bring it to a boil, stirring

vigorously to include in the sauce all particles

of browned fat.

105

A PEIMEE OF COOKING

BSuppose you are having broiled steak (See

Page 90) and want a new sort of sauce to pour

over it. In this case you will not have any resi-

due of grease or liquid to use as a foundation

for the sauce;you will have to manufacture the

whole thing. Put a tablespoonful of butter in

a pan. Cut a small carrot into shreds, break

up a branch of parsley, and season these with

sage. Let them fry gently in the butter for a

minute. Then pour two tablespoonfuls of milk

over them and cover the pan. After they have

simmered for ten minutes, strain the resulting

liquid through a wire colander. Moisten half

a tablespoonful of flour in a cup with half a

tablespoonful of butter, then with a little of the

vegetable liquid. Next add the thickening to

the rest of the liquid. Bring it to the boiling-

point and serve it over the steak.

Or you may make a simpler sauce for a steak,

or fish without any thickening element at all.

Put the hot meat or fish on a hot platter and

drop on each piece some unmelted butter which

you have seasoned in a bowl with salt and a

106

SAUCESteaspoonful of either lemon juice or vinegar.

The hot meat will melt the butter. Garnish

this sauce, after it is on the platter, with

chopped parsley or sliced celery stalks.

DAnother butter sauce is made by melting the

butter in a saucepan, adding to it the juice of

half an orange, and salt, pepper, and paprika,

then beating it with a fork until it is foamy.

Pour it over the meat.

EVelvet sauce is very nourishing in itself. It

uses the yolk of an egg in its preparation and

is very good to serve with warmed-up white

meat, such as veal, pork, lamb, or chicken. To

make this sauce, melt a tablespoonful of grease

in a pan and blend a tablespoonful of flour with

it just long enough to make the mixture smooth.

Add a cupful of either milk or water, cold.

Stir this until the sauce is beginning to thicken,

then set it off the fire. Beat an egg yolk in a

bowl with a teaspoonful of cold water, added to

make the egg blend easily. Season the egg.

Add to it a little of the hot sauce, stirring hard.

107

A PEIMER OF COOKING

Then pour the egg mixture into the rest of the

sauce. Put the saucepan over the fire again,

but be sure to take it off before the sauce boils,

or it will curdle.

F

A cheese sauce is made with the same foun-

dation as velvet sauce,—^butter, flour, and milk

(water cannot be used). After the sauce is be-

ginning to thicken, add half a cupful of sliced

cheese to it and turn the flame down low, until

the cheese melts. This sauce is thick and rich,

and particularly fine to serve over an omelet

or with a slice of halibut steak.

a

Then there are two other simple sauces, madewithout thickening. For roast beef, fried fish,

or breaded meat, try a hot sauce vinaigrette.

Warm together in a pan one tablespoonful of

vinegar, two tablespoonfuls of olive-oil, salt,

pepper, and the following things chopped fine

:

one onion, a slice of cabbage, a sprig of

parsley, and a sweet pickle. Pour this over the

meat or fish.

108

SAUCES

HTartar sauce may be served hot or cold. It

is made of cream sauce—^half a cupful of it

—

added to an equal amount of oil mayonnaise

with the addition of a pinch of mustard, a sweet

pickle cut fine, either two or three stuffed olives

chopped or a teaspoonful of chopped capers.

Serve tartar sauce with left-over meat or with

fish of any kind.

In order to have materials on hand for sauce-

making, you will have to preserve every atom

of food that has flavor in it. When you find

half-wilted pieces of celery on a stalk, cut them

up and cook them for an hour or so in cold,

salted water. The resulting juice, strained, will

make a delicious sauce for that evening ^s meat

course. Use it instead of plain water. Cab-

bage leaves may be treated in the same way,

and so may any vegetables. Eadishes cooked

for two hours or less will get soft enough to be

pushed through a wire strainer. Season them

with a dash of salt, pepper, and dry mustard.

This semi-liquid you will discover to be a

piquant sauce for halibut or fried oysters.

Before washing a baking-pan, put a little cold

109

A PRIMER OF COOKING

water in it and with a spoon or a fork scrape

down from the sides all brown particles. Let

these come to a boil with the cold water. Sea-

son the liquid and set it away to form the liquid

part of your next dinner sauce.

Note: A recipe for cream sauce is to be

found on Page 56.

110

IV

FISH

Fish is already very tender when it is bought.

So the cooking is never a long process.

In all city fish-markets, now, the dealer will

scale and clean the fish for you. This makes

it possible for you to have fish two or three

times a week without the trouble of preparation.

Fresh fish may be fried, baked, broiled, or

stuffed, just like meat.

FRIED FISH

Trout, bass, and perch are all adaptable to

frying. Wash them first with cold water and

dry them with a paper napkin. Salt them in-

side and out. Dip them in milk, then in flour,

and drop them into hot fat. Cook them fast

until they are brown on both sides (this will

take about eight minutes), then put them out

on a hot platter garnished with a stalk of

parsley that has cooked for a minute or two in

111

A PEIMER OF COOKING

the hot fat. Just before serving add a tea-

spoonful of tomato sauce on top of each fish.

If you want to fry a larger fish, such as a

shad, cut it into several pieces first, meanwhile

lifting out the backbone.

BAKED FISH

Any fish may be stuffed or baked. Wash it

first and dry it. Make a stuffing of crumbled

bread, a quarter of an onion minced fine, and

salt and pepper. Lay this along one side of

the fish and then squeeze lemon-juice over it.

Close the other side of the fish down over the

stuffing. Tie with string. Put the fish in a

frying-pan with a little melted butter, and

sprinkle flour over the skin. When it is

browned in the butter, put a strip of bacon on

top of the fish, add half a cup of boiling water,

put the lid tightly on the pan, and bake in a

moderate oven for half an hour.

Instead of baking the stuffed fish you might

grill it. Set it between the grilling racks and

grill it as you would grill a beefsteak, starting

with a hot fire to brown the skin, then lowering

112

FISH

the flame to cook the fish through. The grill-

ing will not take more than fifteen minutes.

With baked or grilled fish a velvet sauce is

good (See E, Page 107). Or you may use the

simpler one of melted butter with lemon-juice

(C, Page 106).

FISH IN CASSEROLE

If you can get a piece from the small end of

a salmon or halibut,—weighing about two

pounds,—you can make a baked casserole dish

with a delicious sauce. Melt two tablespoon-

fuls of butter in a pan and fry in it two small

sliced onions, until the onions are soft. Adda cupful of tomato soup, let the soup heat, then

season the sauce with salt and pepper. Put

this in the bottom of a greased casserole, add

the piece of fish,—^washed and dried,—cover the

casserole, and bake for half an hour in a mod-

erately hot oven. It will be done when the

fish falls away from the bone if you touch it

with a fork. Serve in the casserole. Pickerel

or whitefish may be baked in this same way.

A very delicate way to cook either large or

small fish is to chop up about a cupful of vege-

tables and herbs,—mushrooms, parsley, onions,

113

A PRIMER OF COOKING

celery, and thyme. Then in a soup kettle or a

casserole that can stand on top of the stove

melt a tablespoonful of butter. Sprinkle a

tablespoonful of flour over the butter and add

half of the herbs. Lay on this one or two small

fish,—^washed, dried, and salted,—and cover

them with a layer of bread crumbs. Put on

next the other half of the herbs and add another

layer of crumbs. Squeeze over this the juice

of one lemon and add a cupful of some liquid,

—^preferably a vegetable or thin soup of meat,

otherwise hot water. Cover the pan and cook

on top of the stove, at simmering temperature,

for half an hour. Serve all of this dish, using

the herbs for a garnishing.

HALIBUT

Halibut is the most easily obtainable fish

steak. The quickest way to cook it is to fry it,

having first dipped it in milk, then in bread

crumbs. Use two tablespoonfuls of cooking-

fat for one slice of halibut. Brown each side

in the hot fat, then turn the flame down low,

cover the pan, and let the fish cook for twenty

minutes. Serve it with tomato or cheese sauce

(See F, Page 108).

114

FISH

Or you may bake halibut, after you have

dipped it in milk and bread crumbs. Havemore cooking-fat in the pan than you would

have for frying. Cover the baking-pan and

set it in a rather slow oven for half an hour.

Turn the halibut once during this time, to allow

both sides to get brown.

"When tomatoes are in season, try this wayof baking halibut : Lay it in a frying-pan with

melted butter. Season it well with salt and

pepper, then slice tomatoes over the top of it.

On top of the tomatoes put about half a cupful

of shredded green peppers. Season these and

bake in a moderately hot oven, with no lid on

the pan, until the top of the fish is brown.

Serve with a dab of unmelted butter on top of

the halibut.

Halibut may be poached, if you want to makea very elaborate, decorative dish of it. In a

frying-pan melt a tablespoonful of butter.

Cook gently in it, for a few minutes, one small

sliced onion. Stir in a tablespoonful of flour,

blend it with the butter and onion, and add acup of milk. Season this sauce. Bring it to

115

A PRIMER OF COOKING

a boil, stirring it. Then add to it a few thin

shreds of carrot. Lay the halibut in the pan.

Cover the pan and cook the fish at the simmer-

ing-point for about twenty-five minutes. Lift

the lid occasionally, baste the top of the fish

and lift the slice with a spatula to let the sauce

run under it. About five minutes before the

halibut is done, light the oven. Then, after the

poaching is done, set the pan under the flame

of the grill to brown the fish and sauce. Serve

it covered with sauce.

SAXMON IiOAF

Canned salmon may be made into several

quickly cooked dishes. Perhaps the most prac-

tical of them is salmon loaf. This is really a

form of souffle. To make it, drain a pound

can of salmon and separate the fish from the

bones and skin. In a greased baking-dish that

has a rounded bottom, beat two eggs. Salt

them. Add the salmon and mash it down to

mix it thoroughly with the egg. Add about a

quarter of a cup of milk. Set the baking-dish

in a moderately hot oven. In twenty minutes

or less the loaf will be done, with the top of it

firm and brown. Have a hot platter ready to

116

FISH

receive it. Then, with a blunt knife or a

spatula loosen the loaf around the edges and

run the knife underneath. Drop it out upside

down on the platter. Pour over it a cream

sauce (See Page 56) or any piquant sauce you

can make from vegetable liquid,—such as rad-

ish or celery sauce (See Page 109). Be sure not

to take the loaf out of the baking-dish until it

is firm on top.

SAIiMON PIE

A salmon pie is made by creaming the salmon

first,—a cupful of plain cream sauce to a can

of salmon,—then by putting the creamed sal-

mon in the bottom of a greased shallow baking-

dish. Cover the top with pie crust. Bake in

a hot oven until the crust is brown; about ten

or fifteen minutes.

BAKED TUNA

A tasty dish is to be made of a can of tuna

fish combined with a cupful or more of mashed

potatoes. Butter a baking-dish. Beat an egg

and mix the tuna fish with it. Add and mix

the mashed potato and half a cup of milk. Put

this in the baking-dish and bake it without a

117

A PEIMER OF COOKINa

lid, in a hot oven, until the top is brown. Serve

with a hot sauce vinaigrette (See B, Page 108).

OYSTER SOUP

Since oyster soup does not fall precisely un-

der the category of soups, it must be treated by

itself.

You can see that in the making of oyster soup,

the important point is to conserve for the soup

every particle of oyster flavor. So never wash

the oysters first, and particularly never throw

away the oyster liquor. This latter is of vital

importance to the piquancy of the soup. But

look the oysters over carefully, before using

them, to make sure there are no bits of shell

sticking to them.

In a saucepan melt a tablespoonful of butter,

blend a tablespoonful of flour with it, and slowly

stir in a pint of milk,—or, if necessary, half

milk and half water. Stir the mixture until it

is smooth. Then add a quarter of a pint,

—

or more if you like,—of small oysters, and as

much liquid as you can drain off from them.

Season the soup with salt, pepper, and paprika.

Keep it below the boiling-point and cook it until

118

FISH

the gills of the oysters curl up. Serve it while

it is still at the simmering-point. If you want

it to be very inviting-looking, add a little but-

ter to it, just before you take it from the stove.

FRIED OYSTERS

Fried oysters are very simple to prepare.

Use large-sized ones. Drain them. Put them

in pairs, with the gills at opposite ends. Have

a beaten egg in a bowl and a shallow dish of

bread or cracker crumbs. Dip each pair of

oysters first in egg, then in crumbs, and lastly

drop it into hot cooking-fat. This fat need

not be abundant enough to cover the oysters.

Use about three tablespoonfuls to a pint of

oysters. When the under side of each fried

oyster is crisp and brown, turn it, but not be-

fore ; turning it too soon would make the oysters

separate. Keep the fire at moderate heat.

Don't cover the pan; that would make the oys-

ters soggy. They will fry in from ten to fif-

teen minutes.

Serve with the oysters the following sauce:

Drop a little flour into the fat the oysters cooked

in. Stir a tablespoonful of catsup with it. Addthe juice of a whole lemon and half a cupful of

119

A PRIMER OF COOKING

water. With the flame up high, stir this sauce

rapidly and when it is bubbling pour it into a

sauce-boat, to be served at the table.

HOW MUCH FISH TO BUY

One pound of halibut will serve two persons.

Allow at least two small fried fish to a serv-

ing.

A large fish, such as shad, weighing over two

pounds, will serve three or four.

One pound can of salmon will make a salmon

loaf large enough for three persons.

Use a small can or half of a big one, for a

salmon pie for two.

One can of tuna fish will make a baked dish

for three.

Allow three or four fried oysters to a person.

One pint will make enough fried oysters for

two persons, and will leave plenty for oyster

soup.

One pint of milk will make oyster soup—al-

lowing for large portions—^for two.

120

POULTRY

Before ordering or choosing a chicken be sure

that you have decided upon the way you are

going to cook it, because your requirements in

the matter of size and age will depend upon that

alone. If it is a young frying-chicken you want,

or a chicken to broil, it must not weigh more

than a small fraction over a pound. For fried

chicken for more than two people you will need

a fowl weighing about two and one half pounds.

For a chicken fricassee get a four-pound

chicken. For roasting, about a three-pound

one.

Young frying-chickens, or broilers, can be

had during July, August, and September. In

the late autumn and early winter months the

older chickens are at their cheapest.

The chicken will come from the retail dealer

—in practically every case without special re-

quest on your part—dressed and partly cleaned.

121

A PEIMER OF COOKINGThe first thing for you to do is to singe the skin,

to get off the hairs. Do this over some flame

other than gas, in order not to get its fumes

into the skin. A tallow taper is a very good

thing to use, if it is obtainable ; but the easiest

thing to keep on hand for this purpose is a can-

dle. Hold the chicken over the flame, turning

it and letting it hang first by one leg, then by

the other, until the heat has reached every part

of the surface. After the singeing, wash the

skin under running cold water

Next comes the cleaning of the chicken, which

the dealer will have done more or less thor-

oughly, putting back the parts which are edible.

You will find, inserting your hand into the

opening cut at the tail end, the heart, the liver,

the gizzard, and the neck, the first three of

which are called the giblets. The liver will pos-

sibly be in one or two pieces ; the mutilation of

it will be due to the difficulty of removing from

it the gall bladder, which lies on its under sur-

face. The dealer will have opened the gizzard,

taken out the craw, and left the gizzard

smoothed out and clean.

With the giblets taken out and the neck re-

moved, it will be easy to look in to see if the

122

POULTRYlungs and kidneys have been removed. Often

these are not touched by the dealer, because

they are in rather remote places and because

their removal is not absolutely essential. Thelungs are found one on each side of the back-

bone ; they cling to the ribs, and are easily rec-

ognized by their red color. The kidneys are

at the end of the backbone, resting in a slight

depression.

You will know that the chicken is thoroughly

cleaned when you can see no red particles in-

side. When you are sure of this, let cold water

run through it,—making an outlet for the water

at the neck end, if there is not already one,

—

until the water finally runs out clear.

Clean the giblets by cutting away from them

any extraneous-looking membranes, or pieces of

fat. Cut through the heart to the center of it

and take out a little blood vessel you will find

there. Wash the giblets under cold running

water.

The chicken is now ready for stuffing, if it

is to be roasted.

BOAST CHICKEN

Wipe the chicken inside and out with a damp123

A PEIMER OF COOKINGcloth covered with salt. Light the oven with

a brisk flame. Then make a stuffing of two

cupfuls of crumbled bread, seasoned with salt,

pepper, and leaf sage, dampened with just

enough milk to hold the mass together. Fill

the chicken with the stuffing, putting it in from

the tail end, then stick one big piece of bread

in the opening, as a plug. (This should be

taken out when the chicken is done.) Melt two

tablespoonfuls of cooking-fat in the roaster, lay

the chicken in, on its back, sprinkle it lightly

with flour, and let it brown in the oven, with the

lid off the roaster, for above five minutes. Turn

the chicken several times, during this period,

to expose all the surfaces. Then add three cup-

fuls of hot water to the pan, drop in the giblets

cut into inch-square pieces, cover the pan, and

continue the cooking at a moderate heat until

the chicken seems tender when it is touched with

a fork. Halfway through the cooking salt the

chicken and giblets. Baste two or three times.

Add more hot water if necessary.

An hour or an hour and a half should be an

adequate length of time for the roasting of a

three-pound chicken.

124

POULTEY

When the chicken is done, get it out on a hot

platter and make a milk gravy to serve with it.

This is done by dissolving a heaping tablespoon-

ful of flour in enough milk to cover it, then

adding half a cup of milk to this, stirring until

the milk is even in consistency, and lastly add-

ing it to the liquid left in the roasting-pan. Sea-

son this gravy and stir it until it boils and

thickens. Leave the giblets in the gravy.

BROILED CHICKEN

Cut the chicken in half, splitting it along the

back and through the breast. Follow the di-

rections given for the broiling of steak on Page

90, but have a slower fire, and test the flesh with

a fork, to determine when it is cooked thor-

oughly. It will cook in about twenty minutes.

FRIED CHICKEN

To prepare a chicken for frying you must

first cut it into pieces. This will require the

sharpest knife you have. For ease in cutting

and to get an approximate uniformity in the

size of the pieces, it will be best to follow this

general plan:

Holding the chicken on its back, take one of

125

A PEIMER OF COOKING

the legs in your left hand, while with the knife

in your right hand you slash down through the

skin close to the body. Do not be afraid of

cutting away too much skin from around the

leg. Then bend the leg back until the bone sepa-

rating it from the body cracks; cut between

the interstices of the broken bone and remove

the leg. In the same way, having turned the

chicken around so that the remaining leg is at

your left, cut off the other leg. Cut through

each leg as near as possible to the joint in the

middle, which you can locate by feeling for it.

Then you will have the thigh pieces separated*

from the drumsticks. Cut off each wing next.

This will be easy to do, because there is no

hard bone to cut through. Then cut off the end

of the back, running the knife along just below

the ribs. Next separate the rest of the back

from the breast by following the ends of the

ribs and cutting as far as the collar-bone.

Lastly slit the breast down, keeping near to the

center bone. The piece of neck that will be

found attached to the end of the breast-bone

may be left on, and that piece of breast-bone

will do for soup-making or for stewing. After

126

POULTRY

cutting the chicken up, wash every piece in

running water.

If it is a young frying-chicken, weighing

scarcely more than a pound, it is ready to be

fried immediately. Roll each piece in flour and

drop into a frying-pan in which three or four

tablespoonfuls of cooking-fat are sizzling.

Brown the pieces over a quick fire, until they

are the same color all over. Then put a lid

on the pan, turn the flame down, and continue

the cooking for five or ten minutes, or until the

chicken is tender.

If the chicken is a good-sized one, it will need

parboiling before it can be fried until tender.

Put the pieces in a soup kettle, with salt, pepper,

and not quite enough cold water to cover them.

Bring the water slowly to a boil, with the kettle

covered, then simmer for as long as is neces-

sary to get the chicken tender. Ten or fifteen

minutes will do for a young fowl, but an older

one may require an hour's time. Test the de-

gree of tenderness, from time to time, by lift-

ing up bits of the flesh with a fork. When the

chicken is tender take the pieces out of the

water, roll them in flour, and fry them fast.

127

A PEIMER OF COOKING

They will not need to cook in the frying-pan

after they are brown.

BBAISED CHiaEEN

Instead of parboiling the chicken first, you

may fry it, after rolling it in flour, then put it

in a baking-pan which has been greased, cover

it with about four cups of water, put the lid

on the baking-pan, and allow the chicken to

bake at a rather low heat for two hours.

CHICKEN FRICASSEE

This is a variation of braised chicken, cooked

in a casserole. Parboil the chicken, allowing it

to remain only a short time in the water; half

an hour should be long enough, even for a four-

pound chicken. Then brown the pieces in hot

fat, and pack them into a deep casserole. Adda tablespoonful of flour to the grease left in

the frying-pan, blend the grease and flour until

the flour is brown, then add slowly a pint of

milk, stirring until the milk begins to thicken.

Pour this sauce over the chicken. Season with

celery salt and pepper. Add half a can of

mushrooms cut into halves, a green pepper

shredded, a piece of pimiento cut fine and two

medium-sized sweet potatoes run through the

128

POULTEYmeat-grinder. Cover the casserole and bake

the chicken in a moderately hot oven until it

is tender, or for about two hours.

CHICKEN POT PIE

For a pot pie choose a two-and-a-half-pound

chicken. Cut it up, brown the pieces quickly in

hot fat, then put them in a stewing-pan with

enough boiling water to come half-way up the

bulk. Cover the pan and simmer until tender.

About twenty minutes before it is done add

seasoning, two or three potatoes cut into quar-

ters, and a bunch of new onions, cut in halves

;

cook for ten minutes, then add dumplings (See

Page 98). Serve in fifteen minutes. The whole

process of cooking will take from one to two

hours.

CHICKEN BROTH

Let the water in which the pieces of chicken

were parboiled for frying or fricasseeing go

on simmering for an hour or two after the

chicken has been taken out of it. Leave the

giblets in, and the neck, and any other pieces

—the wings, for instance—^which are not very

meaty. Allow the broth to stand overnight, so

that you can remove the fat from it (See Chap-

129

A PRIMER OF COOKING

ter on Soups). Then warm it up the next day

with two tablespoonfuls of rice to cook in it to

thicken it. Pick the meat from the wings and

add that to the broth.

GIBIiETS ON TOAST

After the giblets have served their purpose

for making broth, they may be cut up fine and

rewarmed in cream sauce (See Page 56) and

served on rounds of toast for a breakfast or

lunch dish.

OmCKEN SALAD

This is an appetizing and attractive way to

serve left-over chicken. Cut it from the bones,

removing skin and gristle, and dice it. Add to

it celery cut into small pieces, sweet pickle, pi-

miento, green peppers shredded,—or whatever

you have at hand that seems appropriate. Put

the salad together with oil mayonnaise (See

Page 154). Serve a slice of chilled beet on top

of each plate of salad, if practicable.

TURKEY, DUCK AND GOOSE

Turkey, duck, and goose must be singed and

cleaned exactly like chicken.

In stuffing them for roasting it will be found

130

POULTRY

necessary to sew up the open places through

which the stuffing was put. In stuffing goose

include one onion, cut up fine, with the bread

crumbs. Duck needs a hot fire during the whole

process of roasting. If it is a young duck it

will roast in from three quarters of an hour to

an hour. Goose will require one and a half to

three hours. Turkey needs about two and a

half hours.

HOW MUCH POULTRY TO BUY

For seven or eight persons a roast turkey

weighing about eleven pounds will be enough.

For the same number of persons two roast

ducks, or a large goose will be needed.

A capon (a chicken fattened especially for

the market) which is tenderer and has a more

delicate flavor than chicken, and fatter, will

serve five persons.

One roast chicken weighing about three

pounds, will serve three or four.

One chicken weighing two and a half pounds

will make enough salad for four.

Fricasseed chicken in casserole, may be made

to serve as many as six, or as few as two, ac-

cording to the quantity of other ingredients you

131

A PRIMER OF COOKING

put in to cook with it. Where there is a four-

pound chicken, it is good plan to fricassee half

of it, for two or three persons, then to use the

rest for salad, or creamed on toast.

In general, a chicken weighing under two

pounds will serve only two.

132

VI

POTATOES, RICE, AND MACARONI

If you treat potatoes, in your cooking of

them, as if they were a rare vegetable ; if you

are continually in search of strange new ways

to fix them ; and if you serve just a little of them

at a time rather than a big tureenful, you will

find that you can make them the most interest-

ing item of a meal.

STEAMED POTATOES

By far the best way to cook them is to steam

them in a steam boiler. For this they should

be cut into quarters, without being pared, and

put into the boiler without liquid, salted, and

with each piece of potato dotted with butter.

They should be soft in three quarters of an

hour. Cooked this way they will be flaky and

perfectly seasoned. They may be served just

as they are,—^with the skins removed before

they are put on the table,—or they may be

133

A PEIMEE OF COOKINa

skinned, and mashed with a fork with a little

more milk and butter added. Let them stay in

the steamer for a few minutes to absorb the

milk, then serve them.

BOILED POTATOES

An objection to steaming is that it takes

longer than boiling. Often you will not have

time to wait. You can get almost the same

flaky effect from boiling potatoes, if you boil

them properly. Select as small ones as pos-

sible and of course choose ones as nearly as

possible uniform in size. Wash them with a

vegetable brush and drop them into boiling,

salted water. Cook for from twenty minutes

to half an hour, or until you can see, by testing

them with a fork, that they are soft. Have no

lid on the saucepan. When they are done, drain

them, then put them back in the pan, on the

fire, with the burner turned very low, and the

pan covered. Leave them there for several

minutes, to dry out the excess moisture. Serve

them on a deep plate, covered with a napkin

to keep their heat in.

Unless they are to be eaten plain-boiled or

mashed, it is better to boil potatoes several

134

POTATOES, EICE, AND MACARONI

hours before they are to be used, and to let

them cool. They harden a little as they cool

and become easier to dice or slice, for frying,

for creaming, for making into an au gratin dish,

or for salad (See Page 45).

BAKED POTATOES

Baked potatoes need careful cooking. Scrub

the potatoes first, with a vegetable brush, then

rub the whole skin over with lard or vegetable

fat. This is to lubricate the skin and to keep

the potato from getting too dry. Have a mod-

erate fire in the oven ; too hot a fire will harden

the skins and cook the potato unevenly. Me-

dium-sized potatoes will bake in three quarters

of an hour. As soon as they are done slash

each one with a slit about two inches long, to

let out the steam. Serve them in a covered

tureen, with a piece of butter pushed into each

opening.

STUFFED POTATOES

Stuffed potatoes are made from baked ones.

Cut each potato in half lengthwise, scoop out

the contents, and mix this together in a bowl

with warm milk, butter, and pepper and salt.

Use just enough milk to moisten the potato.

135

A PRIMER OF COOKING

Put the potato back in the shells, set these in

a shallow baking-pan in the oven, with a hot

flame, and leave them there until they are brownon top.

MASHED POTATOES

If you are in a great hurry to get potatoes

boiled, for mashing, pare them before you put

them to boil and cut them in small pieces. Pre-

pared this way they will get soft in ten or fif-

teen minutes To mash them, drain them, set

them back in their pan on the stove for a min-

ute to dry, then mash them thoroughly, getting

out all the lumps. In a small saucepan heat

almost to the boiling-point half a cup of milk

and a tablespoonful of butter seasoned with

salt and pepper. Add this to the mashed pota-

toes, beat with a spoon until the mixture is light,

and serve in a covered dish.

If you want to serve mashed potatoes in a

very attractive way, spread them, after they

are mashed, over a buttered pie pan. Set this

under the grill of a hot oven until the top of the

potato is uniformly brown. Garnish a steak

platter, or a dish of chops, with this brownedpotato.

136

POTATOES, EICE, AND MACARONIFRIED POTATOES

They are very attractive fried whole. After

they have been steamed or boiled in their skins

and allowed to cool, peel them and drop them

into a frying-pan with hot fat. It will take

only a few minutes to brown them, if you keep

the fire high, and turn them often. Salt them

while they are browning.

If you have a vegetable scoop, that will shape

things into balls, you may use this on boiled

potatoes before frying them, to make them into

a decorative garnish. Otherwise, slice the po-

tatoes, drop them into hot melted fat, salt them,

and with a broad-bladed knife chop them as they

brown, into small pieces. Have a brisk flame

under the pan.

Plain raw-fried potatoes can be prepared in

about fifteen minutes. Have a tablespoonful of

cooking-fat melted in the frying-pan. Pare and

slice as finely as you can one or two large po-

tatoes. Put them in the pan, salt them, and

cover the pan tight. Let the potatoes cook over

a moderately high flame, occasionally taking

off the lid to turn the mass with a spatula, as

the under side browns. Test the potatoes with

137

A PRIMER OF COOKING

a fork, and as soon as they are soft and

browned, serve them.

HASHED BROWN POTATOES

Hashed brown potatoes are an elaborated

form of plain fried ones. They must be finely

cut, so run them through the meat grinder. Mix

with them a small ground onion, salt, pepper,

and ground parsley. Melt butter or cooking-

fat in a frying-pan,—^not more than a table-

spoonful for four potatoes,—and when the fat

is hot drop the potatoes in. With a spatula

flatten the mass down into a roll at one side of

the pan. When it is brown underneath turn it,

keeping the roll as compact as possible. Brownthe second side, and serve immediately.

POTATOES AU GRATIN

Potatoes au gratin are baked creamed pota-

toes, with cheese and bread crumbs added.

Peel and cut into dice two or three boiled po-

tatoes. Make a cream sauce with one table-

spoonful each of butter and flour and a cup of

milk. When this is thick and seasoned drop

the potatoes into it. Grease a baking-dish, put

a layer of bread crumbs in the bottom of it,

138

POTATOES, EICE, AND MACARONI

then a layer of creamed potatoes. On top of

this put a layer of mild cheese cut into slivers.

Repeat the layers until the potato is all used.

Put a few bread crumbs on top. Set the baking-

dish, uncovered, in a hot oven until the top

crumbs are brown.

When you are frying steak or chops you can

very easily cook potatoes with the meat. (See

Pages 89 and 91.) But it will be necessary to

have them sliced very fine so that the pieces

will not be more than an eighth of an inch thick.

A good plan is to cut each potato in strips

lengthwise, then cut each strip into a number

of small strips. Put these in the pan with the

cooking-fat about five minutes before you put

the meat in. Salt them and let them cook with

a moderately slow fire with a lid on the pan.

They will cook in their own liquid.

When you put in the meat, pile the potatoes

to one side of the pan, as much away from the

hottest flame as possible. Or you can take them

out of the pan and heat them up again after the

meat is cooked. Serve the potato strips as a

garnish for the meat. Sweet potatoes are more

decorative for this purpose than Irish ones,

139

A PRIMER OF COOKINGRICE

Rice, to be dry and flaky, must be cooked

rapidly in plenty of boiling salted water. Half

a cupful of rice will make about two cupfuls,

cooked. Wash the rice by holding it under cold

running water in a wire colander. "When the

salted water is boiling fast, drop the rice in

and leave the lid off the pan while the rice cooks.

Twenty-five minutes' boiling should be enough

to make it soft. Drain it in a wire colander

and turn it into a tureen. Put dabs of butter

on top of it, then cover the tureen.

A half-cupful of rice will, when boiled, be

enough for two persons.

MACARONI AND NOODLES

Cook macaroni and noodles—unless you are

cooking them in soup—just as you cook rice.

Wash them first, break them up, then boil them

rapidly for about twenty-five minutes. Drain

them. Reheat them in a brown sauce, or in

tomato sauce with a piece of cheese melted in

it, or simply fry them brown in hot butter and

serve them with Parmesan cheese grated over

them.

140

POTATOES, EICE, AND MACARONIOne third of a standard package of macaroni

or noodles will serve two persons.

HOW MANY POTATOES TO USE

Steamed or boiled, two small ones to a per-

son.

Baked, one large one or two small ones.

Stuffed, two to a person.

Mashed, one large one or two small ones for

each person to be served, with two more added.

Fried, one or less for each person.

An gratin, one or less for each person.

Raw-fried, one small one for each person.

141

VII

GEEEN VEGETABLES

Of vegetables in general the most important

fact to be remembered is that they should not

be served with cream sance.

Peas, carrots, lima beans, and string-beans,

asparagus, and even mushrooms are all too

often merged into one individuality by being

heated in a thick white sauce which calls at-

tention only to itself. These vegetables have

delicate flavors of their own, each one distinct.

It is only by developing the flavors that you can

use them to advantage.

When the vegetables are new and green their

delicacy is of course more marked. Cook them

the day they are picked, if possible, or at least

before they are more than two days old. Peas,

lima beans, and string-beans, carrots, and as-

paragus should be put to cook in a covered

saucepan with barely enough boiling salted

142

GEEEN VEGETABLES

water to cover them. Let them simmer until

they are soft (the time will vary with the vege-

tables). Just before they are done add a little

butter to them, and when this has been thor-

oughly absorbed, they will be ready to serve.

Carrots, before being cooked, must be pared

and cut into dice.

Any of these vegetables may be reheated,

after being cooked until soft, in a frying-pan

with steak or chops. (See Pages 89 and 91.)

This will bring out their flavor and give them

the tang of the meat. Mushrooms are so soft

in their natural state that they will need only

this one cooking to make them ready for the

table. Cut them fine and leave them in the fry-

ing-pan with the meat for five or six minutes.

There are more complex ways of reheating

vegetables, either fresh or canned. One way is

to make a sort of soup of an onion sliced and

fried slowly in butter until it is soft. A cup

of water is added and allowed to come to a boil.

Put the vegetable in this (asparagus is espe-

cially good treated so) and as soon as the mix-

ture is hot turn it into a tureen to serve. Cover

with bits of butter, before taking to the table.

143

A PRIMER OF COOKINGBEETS

Beets, if they are new ones, will need from an

hour to an hour and a half to soften ; old beets

must cook for several hours. Before putting

the beets to boil wash them and cut olf the tops,

leaving about an inch of the stem on the beet.

After they have softened in plenty of boiling,

salted water, drain them, plunge them for a few

minutes into cold water, and skin them. They

are ready then to be reheated for the table.

This sauce is very often used for them. Melt

a tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan, add to

it a tablespoonful of flour, blend the two, stir

into them half a cup of vinegar and a table-

spoonful of sugar. Into this, when it has

boiled, drop the beets, sliced. Serve hot.

Beets may be warmed up in butter alone, with

lemon-juice squeezed over them while they are

in the pan.

6BEEN OOBN

Com on the cob will cook in boiling (salted)

water, in about twenty minutes.

CABBAGE

If you are going to cook cabbage, cut it into

144

GEEEN VEGETABLES

quarters first, and take out the hard center.

Have salted water boiling hard, in a wide cook-

ing kettle. Drop the pieces of cabbage in and

leave the lid off the pan while the cabbage cooks

fast for twenty minutes. Cooked in this waythe cabbage will have scarcely any odor.

Drain the cabbage when it is done, and pre-

pare it for the table by chopping it with a knife

and spoon until it is minced. Then make a

cream sauce (See Page 56). Cabbage is the one

exception to the cream-sauce rule; this is be-

cause its flavor is vigorous enough not to be

dominated. Season the sauce and put the

minced cabbage in it. Put the cabbage and

sauce in a greased flat baking-dish and set it

under the flame of the oven grill until it is brownon top.

CELERY

Celery makes a dainty cooked vegetable.

Like mushrooms, it can be cooked enough by

including it in a frying-pan with meat. Treated

in this way it will still keep some of its crisp-

ness and get brown, as it cooks. If it is boiled

in salted water for twenty minutes it will be

soft. Drain it,—^being sure to keep the cook-

145

A PKIMER OF COOKING

ing-water to use for a sauce at another meal,

—

and reheat it in a brown or a cheese sauce, or

simply fry it in butter and add a half-teaspoon-

ful of tomato sauce to it just before you take it

from the fire. Celery needs a pungent sea-

soning.

OAimED VEGETABLES

Canned vegetables need only to be drained

and reheated in melted butter, in a frying-pan

with meat, or in casserole combinations.

BASED BEAirS

Dried navy beans must be washed and soaked

over night in cold water. One cupful will make

a medium-sized baking-dish full of baked beans.

After the beans have soaked, drain them and

cook them in boiling salted water until they are

soft, which will be in about an hour and a half.

Then light the oven, with a moderately hot

flame. Put the beans, with enough of their

cooking-water to cover them, in a shallow bak-

ing-dish,—or in a bean-pot if you have one,—

•

and add two tablespoonfuls of molasses and two

slices of either bacon or salt pork. Put the

baking-dish or the pot in the oven and bake un-

til the beans get brown and absorb most of the

146

GREEN VEGETABLES

water around them. Keep adding hot water

if they get dry before they are brown. They

will require from one hour to an hour and a

half to bake.

DRIED LIMA BEANS

Dried lima beans will not need to soak over-

night. After you have washed them under run-

ning water, in a colander, put them to cook in

just enough boiling salted water to cover them.

Let them simmer with a lid on the pan for two

hours, or until they are soft. To serve them,

pour off (and save, for cooking purposes), all

their water but a cupful. Stir a teaspoonful

of cornstarch with a teaspoonful of cold water

in a cup until the cornstarch is dissolved. Addit slowly to the beans and stir them until they

come to a boil. Serve in a covered tureen.

TOMATOES

Fresh tomatoes make a very substantial dish,

baked. Wash them, cut off a slice from the

stem end, and scoop out a spoonful of the in-

side. Salt the hollow, and fill it with crumbled

bread, seasoned with salt and sweetened with

a pinch of granulated sugar. Put the tomatoes

147

A PRIMER OF COOKING

in a shallow baking-dish, containing a cupful

of hot water, and bake in a hot oven, uncovered,

until the tomatoes are soft and the bread crumbs

brown. Canned com or green beans of any-

kind may be used for a stuffing instead of bread.

Or you can fry tomatoes. Wash them and

cut them into thick slices, making only three

slices out of one tomato. Put these in a fry-

ing-pan with two tablespoonfuls of melted fat,

flour each slice, and fry them until they are

soft, over a slow fire. Serve them either alone

or on hot toast. If you like you can make a

sauce to go over them by mixing half a table-

spoonful of flour with the grease in the pan,

then pouring on enough cold water to make a

thin sauce. Add some chopped parsley and

seasoning and let the sauce come to a boil.

Pour it over the fried tomatoes.

ONIONS

Onions may be stuffed and baked just like

tomatoes. Tomatoes themselves make a good

stuffing for the onions. Use only a teaspoonful

of stewed tomato to each onion. Bake the on-

ions in a shallow pan in a little hot water or

milk.

148

GEEEN VEGETABLES

HOW MANY VEGETABLES TO BUY

A standard can of vegetables will serve three

or four persons.

One cup of dried lima-beans will make enough

for two.

One pound of green peas will serve two.

One-half pound of string beans will serve two.

One pint of green lima-beans (shelled) will

serve three.

Two medium-sized carrots will serve two.

One bunch of asparagus will serve two.

One bunch of beets, or a pound of old ones,

will serve three or four.

Allow two or more ears of com to a person.

One large head of cabbage will serve four

persons.

One pound of tomatoes, or two or three large

ones, baked, will serve two. Two medium-sized

ones, fried, will serve two. Sliced, one large

one will be enough for two

Allow one or two onions, either baked oi:

stewed, to a person.

149

VIII

SALADS

To be able to make salads comfortably and

on short notice you will need a medium-sized

mixing-bowl, an egg-beater, a wooden fork and

spoon, a pair of kitchen scissors, a lettuce bag

made of mosquito netting or some other loosely

woven goods, and a soft napkin to dry lettuce

in.

Think of salad as something crisp and cold,

—

the most succulent part of dinner. Plan it to

fill its place adequately but not too well: a

heavy fruit salad with mayonnaise would make

your dinner top-heavy, unless the salad were to

be salad and dessert in one; and a fish or a

meat salad would be inappropriate. Potato

salad with dinner would not only be too heavy,

but it would more than likely repeat the potato

element which had been served with the main

course.

Make your salads so that they will be easy

to eat. Shredding the lettuce will help, and

150

SALADS

dicing the vegetables or fruit. Tomatoes, if

they are served whole, should have their skins

taken off first to make them soft enough to be

cut with a fork.

There are two basic salad dressings. Andthese tend to separate salads themselves into

two main divisions. French dressing, made of

an oil and an acid, with seasoning, is generally

used with light salads,—those made of lettuce

alone, or of lettuce with some light added ele-

ment such as asparagus tips or string-beans in

small quantity. Mayonnaise goes with sub-

stantial fruit and vegetable salads, tuna fish,

and salmon.

FB£NCH DBESSINQ

French dressing is so easy to make that it is

much better to mix it fresh every time you need

it than to make it in quantity and set it away.

It should not simply be poured over the salad

ingredients. That would not mix it with them.

It would leave the oil and the acid separate,

and the seasoning half with the oil, half with

the acid. French dressing should be made and

added to the salad all in one operation.

If the salad is to be of lettuce and a small

151

A PRIMEK OF COOKING

quantity of some cooked vegetable,—^beets, for

instance,—shred the lettuce, after you have

dried it in a napkin, and put it in the mixing-

bowl. Pour a teaspoonful of vinegar or lemon-

juice into the bowl and stir vigorously with a

wooden spoon until the lettuce has been well

moistened with it. Put a pinch of salt in the

spoon, fill the spoon with oil, and with the fork

stir the oil until the salt is dissolved. Then

add the oil to the lettuce and stir the salad

again. Sprinkle with white pepper and

paprika. Add the sliced or diced beets, toss

them around once or twice to let them absorb

the dressing,—^but not forcefully enough to

force out their juices,—and serve the salad at

once.

Never mix lettuce with French dressing un-

til just before you want to serve it. The acid

will draw the water from the lettuce and wilt

it. But if you are going to serve a heavy salad

of vegetables with French dressing,—a salad

in which the lettuce is only for garnishing,

—

mix the vegetables with the dressing at least

half an hour before the meal. This gives them

time to absorb the oil and vinegar thoroughly.

At the last minute put the salad on lettuce.

152

SALADS

VABIATIONS OF FRENCH DRESSING

Plain French dressing may be varied by the

addition of new seasonings. Worcestershire

sauce may be used with the vinegar, half and

half. If you chop up a branch of parsley and

a sour pickle or a stuffed olive, and add them to

the salad when you add the vinegar, you will

have a vinaigrette dressing, which will do very

well to serve with left-over fish or with a tart

salad of apples and cream cheese. With salads

of fruit, lemon-juice is better to use than vine-

gar because it is milder. With lettuce alone,

vinegar will be better. Catsup, tomato sauce,

ground onion, dry mustard, chopped capers,

and orange-juice may all be used, with discre-

tion, at different times. If the salad ingredi-

ents are insipid, try to supply piquancy with

the dressing.

MAYONNAISE

Mayonnaise dressing may be mixed cold or

boiled. There will be a difference in the taste.

Boiled mayonnaise, although it may have oil

added to it after it cools, will lack the smooth-

ness and the gliding quality of oil mayonnaise.

It is much lighter in composition, softer and

153

A PEIMER OF COOKING

more delicate. For sandwich-making, for fruit

salads that are to be served with whipped cream

after the dressing is added, and for salmon

salad, boiled mayonnaise might be more pal-

atable.

BOILED MAYOKNTAISE

Boiled mayonnaise is made in this way:

Cream together in a saucepan one tablespoon-

ful each of butter, sugar, and flour, one half

teaspoonful of salt and one half teaspoonful of

mustard. Add the yolk of one egg, unbeaten.

"When the egg is mixed with the rest, add three

fourths of a cup of milk slowly, stirring it as

you pour. Then set the pan over a slow fire

and bring the mayonnaise gradually to a boil,

stirring it continually. As it heats, add little

by little a fourth of a cup of vinegar. The

mayonnaise is done when it has boiled up once,

and is smooth. Set it in a cool place. After

it is cold, you can stir oil into it, if you like, to

make it richer.

OIL MAYONNAISE

To make oil mayonnaise that will not sepa-

rate during the making, you have only to add

the acid ingredient before you add the oil.

154

SALADS

This partly curdles the egg and makes it re-

ceptive of the oil. Put in a cold mixing-bowl

a half-teaspoonful each of salt, dry mustard,

and powdered sugar, a pinch of white pepper,

and a pinch of paprika. Mix these seasonings

and add to them one and a half tablespoonfuls

of either vinegar or lemon-juice. Add to themthe yolk of one egg and beat the whole with an

egg-beater. When it is blended, add the oil,

—

preferably olive-oil, but, lacking it, any reliable

vegetable oil,—at first by the tablespoonful,

then, as the mayonnaise thickens, in larger

quantities. Altogether a cup and a half of oil

may be absorbed by the egg. If the mixture

will not thicken at first, which happens occa-

sionally, set the bowl in the ice-box for an houror so. You will find the mayonnaise thick, whenyou take it out again.

VARIATIONS OF MAYONNAISE

With either boiled or oil mayonnaise as afoundation you can make other dressings.

Thousand-island dressing is mayonnaise with a

teaspoonful of tomato sauce in it and either

pickles or olives chopped with a branch of cel-

ery and a teaspoonful of capers. Tartar sauce

155

A PRIMER OF COOKING

is made by adding to mayonnaise a pinch of

mustard, some chopped parsley, a teaspoonful

of onion juice, and a chopped hard-boiled egg.

For fruit salad you can make a fluffy dressing

by beating sweetened whipped cream into the

mayonnaise.

Keep your mayonnaise in a covered glass jar

or earthenware bowl, in the ice-box.

As soon as you get lettuce home from the

store prepare it for salad-making. Wash it

under cold running water and separate the

leaves. If it is head lettuce, cut off and throw

away the stem. If it is Chinese lettuce (a com-

paratively new product in this country,—

a

heavy, succulent lettuce with a thick stalk and

pale green leaves), take off the outer leaves,

but let the center of the stalk remain intact.

This may be sliced down crosswise, as you need

it, as cabbage is sliced. Place the washed let-

tuce in a lettuce bag or wrap it loosely in a nap-

kin, and put it on ice. If there is no ice, keep

it in a bowl of cold water, covered.

Treat celery in the same way. Separate and

wash every stalk, cutting off the leaves to be

used for sauce-making or in cream-of-celery

156

SALADS

soup. Save the centers of heart celery for serv-

ing as a relish on the table. Put away the

smaller stalks to make into stuffed celery as

an hors d'ceuvre at lunch. Slit the big stalks

down lengthwise into two or three strips. Thiswill make them crisp and curly. Keep the cel-

ery on ice.

Cucumbers, when they are in season, maysometimes take the place of lettuce in salads.

Wash the cucumber and run a fork lengthwise

over the whole surface of the skin. Then peel

the cucumber and slice it, and you will find that

the edges of each slice are attractively scal-

loped. Keep the slices in cold salted water for

an hour before using them._

Eadishes may be sliced or peeled and served

whole.

To prepare tomatoes for a salad, wash themand drop them into boiling water off the stove.

Leave them for a few minutes, then take themout and plunge them into cold water. Theskins will now come off easily. Set the toma-

toes in the ice-box to get cold and firm.

Cabbage, if it is to be used in salads, should

157

A PEIMER OF COOKING

be kept either in the ice-box, wrapped in a cloth

to keep its odor from the other food, or in some

other cool place. To make it into cold slaw,

slice it down crosswise of the head and chop

it in a bowl. Mix it with boiled mayonnaise,

sweetened with a little powdered sugar.

The theory of salads is simple. It consists

in serving in a cold, highly seasoned form any

kind of food material that you have on hand.

So a wide variety of kinds of salad is pos-

sible. You cannot divide salads into fruit,

vegetable, fish, meat, or plain lettuce, with ac-

curacy, because these all overlap. Vegetables

might belong in your salad of cold chopped veal,

a few pieces of tart apple would give flavor to

your vegetable salad, fish salad might need

vegetables with it, and plain lettuce is much im-

proved by both meat and fish.

The question you have to decide continually

is the question of assortment and flavoring:

What elements combine successfully? Which

dressing should the salad have, French dress-

ing or mayonnaise?—or both?

You must take the matter of salad seriously.

It will make a big difference whether the string-

158

SALADS

beans are put together with oil and vinegar or

with mayonnaise. Beets will lose all character

if they are mixed with mayonnaise. Sometimes

a salad will be quite without a crisp element;

when you might easily have added to it either

celery or nuts.

Since flavor and seasoning are so important,

you must be ingenious in distributing them. If,

for example, you are making a salad of several

kinds of fruit,—^bananas, say, and fresh peaches

and Malaga grapes,—instead of cutting the

fruit all up and adding mayonnaise to it in a

mass, make the salad interesting and unex-

pected by diffusing the dressing. In the bot-

tom of the salad bowl lay lettuce leaves. Put

a spoonful of mayonnaise on them. Peel the

bananas and slice them in thin strips length-

wise. Squeeze lemon-juice over the strips and

lay them on the lettuce. Then cut up the

peaches into slivers and stir them thoroughly

with sweetened mayonnaise. Distribute them

well over the bananas. Finally drop the grapes

—seeded, and sprinkled with lemon-juice—on

top of the salad. In this way, you see, the

bananas will be covered with mayonnaise be-

159

A PRIMER OF COOKING

cause they are covered with peaches. Yet they

will keep their own lemon flavor, too.

This scheme of double dressing may be ap-

plied to vegetable salads. Let the vegetables

stand for half an hour in French dressing.

Then shred lettuce, mix it with mayonnaise, and

stir it up among the vegetables. Serve with a

dab of mayonnaise on top of the salad.

160

rx

DESSERTS

Desserts, like soups and salads, must be

adapted to dinner with a nice calculation of the

need they are to supply. There are pies, cus-

tards, and puddings to give heaviness to a meal;

and tarts, fruit whips, and gelatine to give

delicacy.

Customs differ in households, and many peo-

ple prefer to bring the dessert to the table in

one bowl, and serve it there. But individual

desserts are daintier, offer wider opportunity

for decoration, and are economical and dietet-

ically correct.

There is this psychology behind the idea of

individual desserts: the sight of an individual

dessert—a cup custard, a molded bread-pud-

ding, a tart, a garnished slice of pie—somehowimplies that personal, special consideration has

been given to the one who is to eat it ; that the

amount of the dessert has been carefully gaged

161

A PRIMER OF COOKING

to round out a finished and adequate meal; in

short, the individual dessert is a compliment.

Of all cooked desserts custards are the sim-

plest and the most quickly made.

They are made with milk, sugar, and a flavor-

ing element, and are thickened with either eggs

or corn-starch, or with both.

PLAIN CUSTABD

To make a plain, eggless custard for two peo-

ple, put half a pint of milk in a saucepan with

a heaping tablespoonful of sugar. Set this

over a moderate fire. In a cup mix half a

tablespoonful of corn-starch with a tablespoon-

ful of milk. Stir the milk and the sugar until

they just reach the boiling-point. Then pour

the dissolved corn-starch into them and turn

the flame down low. Stir the custard for sev-

eral minutes longer, then take it from the fire,

add a quarter of a teaspoonful of vanilla, and

pour into custard cups or sherbet glasses to

cool, ready to serve.

This will need some decorative feature, such

as a teaspoonful of canned cherries, or of apple

jelly, or two or three slices of banana in the

center of each custard, added after it has cooled.

162

DESSEETS

Or shredded cocoanut may be scattered over the

top.

COFFEE CUSTABD

To make this same custard flavored with cof-

fee, put half coffee and half milk in the sauce-

pan with the sugar and proceed as before. Use

fresh, strong coffee, well strained.

OHOOOLATE CUSTABD

To make chocolate custard, put a tablespoon-

ful of cocoa in the saucepan first, add just

enough milk to dissolve it, then gradually stir

in the rest of the milk. Add the sugar and

proceed as before. It will lighten and improve

chocolate custard to beat half a dozen soft

marshmallows into it, while it is still hot. Gar-

nish the cold custards with marshmallows cut

into pieces.

EGG CUSTARD

Custards made with egg will of course have

more nourishment in them. They are made in

the proportion of two eggs to one pint of milk.

If you omit one egg you may substitute for it

half a tablespoonful of corn-starch to supply

the quota of thickening. Separate an eggy put-

ting the white in a bowl ready for beating. Put

163

A PEIMEE OF COOKING

the yolk in a saucepan. Stir the yolk and add

to it a tablespoonful of sugar, then, gradually,

half a pint of milk. Put the saucepan over a

medium fire and stir until the custard thickens.

Never let it boil. Keep it at the simmering-

point. Add vanilla after you have taken it from

the fire. Beat the white of egg^ sweeten it with

a pinch of sugar, and pour the hot custard over

it. Stir gently, to let the white of egg come to

the top of the custard. Then pour the mixture

into serving cups and set it away to cool. This

is called floating island.

Coffee or chocolate custard may both be made

with egg if you want them to have more body

to them.

If you make a pint of custard and use only

one eggj add the corn-starch when the custard

first reaches the bubbling point.

CUP CUSTARDS

For cup custards use the same proportions

as for boiled ones. Mix the custard in a bowl,

putting in first the whole eggy then the sugar,

the corn-starch if one egg is omitted or if no

egg is used, the flavoring, and lastly the milk.

164

DESSERTS

Dissolve the corn-starch in milk before adding

it. When the materials are blended ponr them

into small, buttered baking-dishes. Set these

in a pan of hot water and bake in a slow oven

until a knife inserted in a custard will come out

with a clean blade. Half a pint of milk will

make two cup custards.

PUDDINGS

A pudding is usually a heavier dessert than

a custard. It is made with some dominant ma-

terial,—rice, bread or fruit. It may be steamed

or baked.

Unlike custards, puddings are better baked

in one mass, ready to be sliced into individual

servings after they are cold. A pudding needs

the richness that bulk cooking can give it.

Have your baking-dishes of tin, aluminum or

earthenware.

KICE-PUDDING

Rice-pudding is the most quickly mixed.

Grease a baking-dish and put in it one table-

spoonful of washed rice to half a pint of milk.

Add a pinch of nutmeg and three tablespoon-

fuls of sugar. Cover the dish and bake in a

very slow oven until the rice is soft and has ab-

165

A PEIMEK OF COOKING

sorbed the milk, and the pudding has browned

on top. This will serve two.

BREAB-PUDIXQTO

Bread-pudding, made well, is far from being

a conunon dish. Grease a small baking-dish

and put in it a cupful of crumbled bread,

—

preferably not too fresh. In a bowl beat the

yolk of an egg with a cup of milk. Pour this

over the bread and stir in a tablespoonful of

seeded raisins, being careful to cover the raisins

with milk and bread, so they will not be exposed

directly to the heat of the oven. Lastly, add

half a cup of either brown or granulated sugar.

Bake in a moderate oven until the pudding is

set and brown. Then beat the white of eg^,

slightly sweetened, and spread it over the top

of the pudding. Return it to the oven and let

the meringue brown. Serve the pudding either

hot or cold. This amount is for two.

This is the basis of bread pudding. Using it,

you may elaborate or change it as you wiU.

You may put strawberry jam in it instead of

raisins, or cold cocoa instead of milk. Or you

may bake it without fruit,—using a fraction

166

DESSEETS

more sugar,—and serve it with chocolate sauce,

made by melting a cake of sweet chocolate in

a quarter of a cup of milk. Or you can make a

marshmallow sauce for it out of ten marshmal-

lows melted in a tablespoonful of milk.

PEACH-PUDDING

To make a pudding out of fresh or canned

fruit, the simplest way is to use a plain muffin

batter, highly sweetened. If you want to make

a peach-pudding, for instance, pare and slice

four peaches and squeeze over them the juice

of half a lemon. Add a pinch of powdered

clove. In a mixing-bowl beat one eggy and add

two tablespoonfuls of sugar to it and half a cup

of milk. Sift in one cupful of flour and a heap-

ing teaspoonful of baking-powder. Beat, add

the peaches, and pour into a greased baking-

dish. Bake in a moderate oven until the pud-

ding is brown. Serve with a sauce made by

cooking two tablespoonfuls of sugar with four

tablespoonfuls of water and the juice of half

a lemon,—thickened, after several minutes'

boiling, with a level teaspoonful of corn-starch

dissolved in a little cold water. This quantity

will serve four people.

167

A PEIMEE OF COOKING

DATE-PUDDING

There are modifications of plain fruit pud-

dings, in which less flour and relatively more

eggs are used. They are richer in composition.

Such a pudding is made with dates and nuts.

Beat one egg with a pinch of salt, add half a

cup of sugar to it, half a cup of seeded and

chopped dates, a quarter of a cup of chopped

nut meats, and a tablespoonful of flour sifted

with half a teaspoonful of baking-powder. Beat

together and pour into a buttered baking-dish.

Bake in a slow oven for about twenty minutes

or until the pudding is set. Serve with whipped

cream. This quantity of ingredients will makeonly two portions.

The same pudding may be made with cooked

prunes instead of dates, or with apricots or any

canned or fresh fruit. You can see that it is

only a sweetened souffle, with the addition of

flour and baking-powder.

APPLE-PUDDING

There is another kind of fruit pudding, too,

that is made without flour or eggs or any liquid.

It depends upon fruit juices for moistening.

168

DESSERTS

So watery fruits, like apples and pears, should

be chosen for it. To make one of these, with

apples, butter a baking-dish and put in the bot-

tom of it slices of pared and cut-up apples,

sprinkle them plentifully with granulated sugar

and cinnamon, then cover with raisins. Repeat

the layers, leaving a layer of sugar on top.

Cover the baking-dish and bake in a quick oven

until the apples are soft and glazed by the

melted sugar. Take them out of the oven and

set marshmallows over the top. Return to the

oven to brown the marshmallows, with the lid

off the baking-pan. Serve the pudding hot,

with a lemon sauce.

Four apples will make a pudding for four

people.

FRUIT WHIP

Under the head of puddings might fall fruit

whips, which are much too fragile in construc-

tion to be called puddings, properly, but which

are baked, and served with a sauce.

They are made with the white of egg^ alone.

Beat the whites of two eggs very stiff, add two

tablespoonfuls of sugar and two tablespoonfuls

of flour sifted with a teaspoonful of baking-

powder. Drop in a cupful of chopped fruit,

—

169

A PRIMER OF COOKING

dates, prunes, peaches, cherries, bananas, or

berries,—and pour immediately into a shallow

greased baking-dish. Bake in a slow oven until

the egg rises and browns slightly. Serve cold,

in two sherbet glasses.

When a sauce is served with fruit whip, it

must necessarily be as light as the whip itself.

Whipped cream sweetened and colored pink

with a few drops of gelatine flavoring is ap-

propriate. So is a sauce made of candied cher-

ries, chopped and cooked with half a dozen

marshmallows soaked in milk.

Directions for making gelatine are always

found on the package, and they differ with dif-

ferent brands. Try to have several flavors of

gelatine on hand, at once, so that you can make

a little of each, to get a contrasting effect.

Orange and strawberry together will be eaten

with twice the relish of either flavor alone.

And garnish your gelatine desserts with

pieces of fruit, whipped cream, ground maca-

roons, marshmallows. Never use nuts; gela-

tine makes them soggy.

If you beat gelatine with an egg-beater just

170

DESSERTS

as it is beginning to harden you can double the

quantity of it. You can beat whipped cream

into it, too, or cold cocoa or coffee.

PIES

The most substantial of desserts is pie. Andit is not hard to make ; it follows very definite,

easy rules.

To make the crust, first have spread out in

front of you on an adequately large table space

a big bread-board, a mixing-bowl, a rolling-pin,

a pie pan, a small half-pint flour-sifter, baking-

powder, butter, lard or any good vegetable fat,

and a glass of cold water, a fork, and a sharp

knife.

First light the oven with a moderate flame.

Then grease the pie pan and sprinkle flour over

the bread-board.

Into the mixing-bowl sift two half-pints of

flour, putting two teaspoonfuls of baking-pow-

der and half a teaspoonful of salt with the

second sifterful. Add to this about half a cup

of shortening (See Page 84), and with your fin-

gers work at it until the flour has taken up the

shortening and turned into a sort of coarse

meal. Make a hole in the center of the flour

171

A PRIMER OF COOKING

and pour into it a very little cold water. Make

the flour and water into a big ball, adding more

water if necessary. When the ball is compact

enough to be picked up, divide it in two and

lay half of it out on the floured board. Flour

the rolling-pin and roll the dough out very flat,

as nearly round as you can make it. Fit it over

the buttered pie pan and with a sharp knife

trim it around the edge of the pan. You are

now ready tc put the ingredients of the pie in

place. Suppose it to be apples, in this case.

Pare and cut into small pieces about four good-

sized apples, distributing them evenly over the

pie crust. In the bowl that you mixed the

dough in, put half a cup of sugar and two table-

spoonfuls of flour. (The flour is to thicken the

juice made by the apples and melting sugar.

With apricots, peaches, or other less watery

fruits flour is not needed.) Sprinkle the flour

and sugar over the apples, add a pinch of either

clove or cinnamon and a dab or two of butter.

Then roll out the top pie crust and lay it over

the apples. Trim the edge of the pan. Make

indentations along the edge with a fork, and

cut two or three short slashes in the top of the

172

DESSERTS

pie, to allow the steam to escape during cook-

ing. Bake the pie for about half an hour, in

not too hot an oven. Test it, when the crust

is brown, by sticking a fork in one of the slashes.

If the apples are soft to the touch, the pie is

done. It will be better not to cut the pie until

it has cooled.

A cream pie or a lemon pie is made with only

a lower crust. Prepare half the usual amount

of dough and spread the crust over the bottom

of the pan. Bake the crust in a hot oven.

When it is done, and has partly cooled, add the

cream or lemon filling, with its meringue, and

reheat to brown the meringue.

The filling for a cream pie is the same as an

egg custard. (Page 163.) A pint of milk will

make enough custard for one pie. If you like,

you can add half a cup of shredded cocoanut

to the custard before pouring it into the pie

shell. Instead of pouring the custard over the

beaten egg whites, put the egg whites on top

of the custard after it is in the pie shell.

TABTS

Tarts may very easily be made out of left-

over scraps of pie dough. Roll the dough out

173

A PEIMER OF COOKING

very thin and press it down over the reverse

side of a muffin pan, greased beforehand. Bake

in a hot oven. Take the shells carefully from

the muffin rings and set them to cool. Just be-

fore serving them fill them with fruit preserves

or cooked custard. These same tart shells will

do as patties for creamed oysters or meat.

LAST-MINUTE DESSERTS

Besides these cooked desserts, there are doz-

ens of quick desserts, ready to be got together

in a few minutes. Cheese and crackers make

a reliable one. Fresh fruit is always a wise

dessert. So are nuts and cluster raisins. Or

you may have stuffed dates, fruit cup, an elab-

orate sweet fruit salad, individual squares of

devil's food cake with whipped cream and a

candied cherry on top of each one, half a grape-

fruit with a teaspoonful of jam in the center of

it, salted nuts, or after-dinner mints.

174

INDEX

SUBJECT PAGEAppetizers 47Apple Pie 172Apple Pudding 168Apple Sauce 60

Asparagus 142

Bacon 28Baked Beans 146Baked Fish 112Baked Meats 93Baked Potatoes 135Bass IllBeans 142Beette 144Biscuit 35Boiled Mayonnaise 154Boiled Potatoes 134Braised Chicken 128Breaded Meats 94Bread-Pudding 166Broiled Chicken 125Broiled Steak 90Broth—Chicken 129Buckwheat Cakes 32Butter Cake 64Butter Sauces 106

Cabbage 144-157Cake 62Canned-Fruit Marmalade 39Canned Vegetables 146Caramel Icing 71Carrots 142-143Casserole Dishes 99

SUBJECT PAGECelery 145-156Cereals 41Cheese and Crackers.... 174Cheese Sauce 108Chicken 121Chicken Broth 129Chicken Fricassee 128Chicken Pot Pie 129Chicken Salad 130Chinese Lettuce 156Chocolate Cake 65Chocolate Cookies 68Chocolate Custard 163Chocolate Icing 70-71Chops 91Cocoa 23Coffee 22Coffee Custard 163Cookies 67Cooking Fats 84Corn Bread 36Corn on Cob 144Creamed Dishes 56Cream Pie 173Cream Sauce 56Cream Soup 82Croquettes 57Cucumbers 157Cup Cakes 66Cup Custard 164Custard (Eggless) 162

Date Pudding 168Dates (Stuffed) 59

175

INDEXSUBJECT PAGEDesserts 161Dried Lima Beans 147Duck 130Dumplings 98

Egg Custard 163

Eggs 24

Fish IllFish in Casserole 113Flannel Cakes '32

Floating Island 164Frankfurters 30French Dressing 151

Fried Chicken 125

Fried Eggs 24

Fried Fish IllFried Oysters 119

Fried Potatoes 137Fried Steak 88

Fritters 52Fritto Misto 53

Fruit Salad 159Fruit Whip 169

Gelatine 170Giblets 130Gingerbread 69Goose 130Grape Fruit 59Green Corn 144Green Vegetables 142Grilled Fish 112

Halibut 114Ham 29Hash 54Hashed Brown Potatoes 138Hors d 'CEuvres 47Hot Cakes 31

IcingsIndividual Desserts

70161

Kitchen Bouquet 79Kitchen Utensils 13

SUBJECT PAGELard 85Last Minute Desserts. .

.

174Layer Cake 65Left-overs, Use of 49Lemon Pie 173Lima Beans 142Lima Beans (Dried) 147Liver 91

Macaroni 140Maple Syrup 33Marmalade 39Marshmallow Sauce 167Mashed Potatoes 136Mayonnaise 153Meat Loaf 97Meats 86Meat Soup 79

Muffins 34Mushrooms 143

Navy Beans 146Noodles 140

Nuts 174

Oil Mayonnaise 154Olive Oil 84Omelet 25

Onions 148Orange Marmalade 39

Oranges 59

Oysters—Fried 119Oyster Soup 118

Peach Pudding 167Peas 142Perch IllPies 171Plain Custard 162Poached Eggs 26Popovers 36Potatoes 133

Potatoes au Gratin 138Pot Pie—Chicken 129

176

INDEXSUBJECT PAGEPot Roast 93Poultry 121Prunes 60Pudding 165Puree 81

Radishes 157Radish Sauce 109Raisins 174Rice 140Rice Pudding 165Roast Beef 91Roast Chicken 123Roast Meats 96

Salads 150Salmon Loaf 116Salmon Pie 117Sauces 103Sauce Tartar 109Sauce Vinaigrette 108Sausage 29Scrambled Eggs 26Seasonings 79Shad 112Shortening 63Souflle 50Soup 78Soup Seasonings 79Spice Cake 66Spices 79Sponge Cake 63Steak 88

SUBJECT PAGESteamed Eggs 27Steamed Potatoes 133Stew 54-98Strawberry Sauce 61Stuffed Dates 59Stuffed Fish 112Stuffed Meats 94Stuffed Peppers 47Stuffed Potatoes 135Syrup 33

Tartar Sauce 109-155Tarts 173Tea 22Thousand Island Dress-ing 155

Timbales 50Toast 37Tomatoes 147-157Trays 19Trout IllTuna 117Turkey 130

Utensils and Accessories 13

Vanilla Icing 71Vegetable Fats 85Vegetables 142Vegetable Soup 81Velvet Sauce 107Vinaigrette Dressing . .

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153Vinaigrette Sauce 108

177